Oaths Sworn
by Vera Kate
Summary: Everything is up in the air. Between dealings with the Cains, Malcolm, and the Pack, Chloe and Derek quickly realize that they stepped into something that is much bigger than they could have imagined. When their lives depend on solving a mystery, Chloe has to make a choice that could drive Derek away from her forever. Ghosts don't stay hidden forever. Sequel to Promises Made.
1. Introductions

**A/N: **Hi everyone! It looks like I didn't need a month after all! I just needed to actually sit down and figure out all of the specific details and now things are working much easier! I'm still quite a bit ahead (I'm working on chapter 10 right now!), so until further notice, it'll be an update every two weeks. I'm hoping to keep enough of a buffer that it has time to sit, let me get further ahead with little plot things, and also time to edit!

As always - a **drabble of your choice to the first ten reviewers**! I'm just going to keep putting them in _Tales_. If you haven't noticed, the chapter headings of _Tales_ tells you which chapter the drabbles are for. I'm really hoping to hit ten reviews per chapter guys! I know that you're reading it! I really like to hear your thoughts and I promise I won't bite. :)

Also a reminder - are you reading the **new online Chloe novella, Atoning_?_**We have a forum where we're talking about it! You can find it in the DP forum section under 'Atoning - Chloe novella' or simply use the link in my profile.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Darkest Powers_ series or the _Otherworld_ universe by Kelley Armstrong.

* * *

Previously in _Promises Made_:

…

"_Now, before we all introduce ourselves," Malcolm said as Keith took over the bag and laid it on the floor. "I want to refresh everyone's memory of the deal we made. I got you not only the files the Nasts had but the ones the St. Clouds did not turn over. In return, Derek was trained under my supervision and Chloe would receive training. In addition to this, Derek has also agreed to join me as we set out to right the wrongs that have been done to us."_

_Malcolm strode over to the bag and began loosening one tied end._

"_Now, you're both fairly intelligent creatures. You probably already figured out that this is Chloe's trainer. I keep my word," he muttered. He looked up at Chloe and Derek._

"_And you will find that not only was I able to find a trainer, I was able to find one that while … not particularly powerful, at least has the knowledge necessary for you, Chloe. It was really an all-in-one package, really. She has the knowledge, she's the necromancer representative on the council, and she just so happens to be the partner of one of the werewolves at Stonehaven."_

_Malcolm finished opening the bag. Chloe couldn't see her face but could see that she had red hair. She found Derek's hand and took it._

"_Chloe, meet Jaime Vegas."_

* * *

Oaths Sworn

Chapter 1: Introductions

The woman stirred in the bed. She let out a low moan, hands moving around the bed. She opened her eyes and stared at the room she was in.

Chloe, seeing movement that indicated that she was awake, rushed over with the trash can. Theo had warned her to keep one close by, just in case.

The woman didn't get sick. She merely looked around the room, as if it was normal for her to wake up in a strange place with no memory of how she arrived there.

"Are you okay?"

The woman sat up and ran her fingers through her hair.

"Who are you?" She paused, giving Chloe another look over. "Please tell me that you weren't the one who grabbed me."

"No, I'm Chloe, Chloe Saunders. I … I'm so sorry. I'm the reason you were brought here."

Jaime eyed her curiously. "You? And why would that be?"

"We can get into that later," Chloe said, looking at her watch. She had been making regular visits downstairs to check on Lauren and Derek. Lauren had come up once to give her a brief assessment and Derek was the one who had taken Jaime upstairs. They were now both huddled over Chloe's original files. Every time she went down, they didn't appear to have interacted at all, expect for one time. One time she had gone downstairs and it sounded as though they were discussing something. However once she got closer, they both stopped talking. She had hung around outside the room, hoping that they might resume their conversation but they didn't.

Before all of this, she hadn't given much thought to Derek and Lauren ever having a civil conversation.

"I'm going to go and grab my aunt, she's a doctor," Chloe said. "If you want, the bathroom is just down the hall on your left. I'll be right back."

"She's awake."

* * *

Lauren looked up from the binder and rubbed her eyes. "Right," she nodded. "Just give me a minute to finish this section and I'll be right up."

Chloe lingered in the room. Her eyes wandered over to Derek. He was facing away from her but she knew that he was aware of her presence. He didn't say anything, he didn't turn around and flash her grin; he just kept staring at those blasted papers.

Lauren stood up and put the binder aside. "Let's go and see the celebrity."

Lauren left the room, leaving Chloe and Derek alone. She watched him. He was an expert in ignoring things that he didn't want to deal with. She always preferred to handle them directly. Ignoring a problem never made it go away. Unfortunately Derek found that was to be opposite in his case – often the problem was _people_ and people tend to leave if he ignored them long enough. She often had a source of entertainment when they still had homework to do.

It was a game of sorts that Tori and Derek had. Tori would frequently finish her homework the quickest of the group and then spend the rest of the time whining about how boring it was and that everyone just needed to hurry up or just put their books away for a while. Simon never seemed to mind it and then it would end up being two versus two. Tori and Simon knew the easy way of winning would be to target Chloe, since if she left, Derek would begrudgingly put away his assignments. That posed no challenge. Instead they focused their attention on him, talking about the most inane of subjects or making up their own. One afternoon Simon and Tori had 'invented' their own language – and by 'inventing', Simon rediscovered his long lost love of pig latin.

Derek lasted fifteen minutes before the words crawled under his skin enough that he stormed out of the room.

Simon and Tori were satisfied for a week with that victory. It was that or they decided they didn't need to push Derek close to any homicidal rages in a short time frame.

It was tempting to use it; see if that would grab his attention. It would at least get him to stop looking at those files and trigger a memory of how things once where, how things were supposed to be.

She left the room and went upstairs.

* * *

Lauren didn't answer Chloe on the steps. Chloe had never heard of Jaime Vegas. How could she be a celebrity? Was she from overseas? Chloe didn't recall hearing a foreign accent.

Jaime was sitting on the bed where Chloe had left her. Her makeup had been washed off and her hair looked as though she had run a brush through it.

"I'm fine, but I can't say the same for you," she quipped.

"Jaime – can I call you Jaime? This is all just a big mess, I know."

"You know?"

"We aren't here by our choice either," Lauren explained. "It's a ridiculously long backstory, but we're not going to hurt you. Not me or Chloe. I'm a doctor and I have a limited amount of exposure to treating supernaturals. Chloe," Lauren squeezed Chloe's shoulder, "is my niece and unfortunately the reason you were brought here."

"She mentioned that."

Lauren nudged Chloe and Chloe returned it with a glare.

"Is anyone going to explain what is going on? What do you want? Ransom? My insurance policy isn't what it used to be."

"I … I needed a teacher," Chloe said slowly.

Jaime looked at the two and raised an eyebrow. "If you want a teacher, you definitely have the wrong person."

"You're a necromancer, right? Well, I am one too … and I need help."

"Help?"

Chloe walked over to one of the walls and pointed at a rune. It was almost crude, looking as though a toddler had drawn it.

Jaime looked it for a moment, furrowing her brow. She stood up and walked over to Chloe. She looked at it for several minutes, not saying a word.

"Do you know what it is?"

"I … no," Jaime shook her head. "It looks like something that I saw a long, long time ago. It's a rune of sorts, correct?"

Chloe nodded.

"And what are you using this one for?"

"It's not just that one. There are others – here in the room, downstairs, outside in the woods. I have … Its best for me to stay near them."

"Why? What does it do?"

"I thought you knew what it was for."

Jaime looked back at it and shrugged.

"If … If I don't, I raise the dead."

Jaime smirked and let out a laugh. "You raise the dead?"

"Yes."

"And you don't have any of the herbs or perform any of the rituals?"

"No."

Jaime snorted. "Okay guys, you can come in now. Your little 'kidnap Jaime' because it's been a while since I was abducted scheme is getting old."

Lauren sat in a chair.

"It's not a joke, I'm afraid. Chloe can do everything that she said and more, much more. She was an experiment."

Jaime looked at the two women, searching their faces. "You two … you're being serious, aren't you?

Chloe nodded.

Jaime sat back on the bed. "Shit."

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Jaime said. "You," pointing at Chloe, "are her," pointing at Lauren, "niece but neither of your parents were supernatural."

"No, her father was a magician, a weak one, but still. He doesn't know anything about that part of his life or the community. The necromancer gene was passed on through her mother. Her mother's twin brother was a necromancer but he died a long time ago. The experiment was supposed to help delay the onset of her powers. It was supposed to something very gradual. It failed."

"Okay, and Chloe, you're dating him," pointing at Derek, "and his biological family that didn't raise him or have any contact with him kidnapped the two of you and then brought your aunt in to help explain what was done?"

"Right."

"So," Jaime said turning to Derek. "What are you? Another necromancer? A wizard? Shaman? Half-demon?"

Derek shifted and looked over to Chloe, who nodded. Lauren had gripped the arm of her chair, her knuckles turning white.

"Werewolf."

"Oh really now? And you were also in this experiment?"

Derek nodded.

"Did they make the Changes … less brutal; I guess is the way to phrase it. Jeremy always described it as being very, very painful."

Lauren's hand slipped from the chair. Chloe's eyebrows were raised. Derek tried to remain stoic but even he was caught off guard at how casual she was being.

"I don't have anything to compare it to but … it's pretty painful."

"That's a shame," Jaime said. "Well, what else is there? I just train you and then I'm free to go?"

Chloe bit her lip. "I don't know. I hope so. I hope that we all can leave still but …" she looked over at Derek. He didn't meet her gaze.

"It's all up in the air but we're working on a plan," Lauren said, trying to reassuring. "Regardless, Chloe needs training. She can't hide behind these runes forever."

"Do you mind if you two leave and Chloe and I talk? If I'm going to help her, I need to know more about what she's done. It isn't the easiest of subjects to talk about in front of an audience."

"Of course," Lauren said, hopping out of her chair. "I'll be downstairs, going over the rest of the files. I'm almost done with them and I should be able to put together the big picture soon."

She left and Derek hung by the doorway for a minute. Chloe walked over to him. She wanted to be angry with him but she knew that they needed to appear united for now, in front of Jaime. It wouldn't instill much confidence of the remotest chance of a possibility of escaping if they were bickering.

"If she tries to push you, you can always say no," he said quietly.

"I'm not fifteen anymore. I know that."

"I'm serious," his eyes met hers. "Remember what Liz said. You can always say no."

* * *

Jaime sat there in stunned silence; listening to Chloe recount her early days knowing that she had power over the dead.

"The first time I actually summoned someone, well, it was someones. They were buried under the house we were staying at, in the crawl space. They were the part of the first experiments. Nothing says that an organization is legitimate quite like hiding the bodies of the failures."

"This same Edison Group, I assume?"

Chloe nodded. "Well … as I said, they weren't happy about it. Derek had followed me; I guess he was keeping tabs on me since he thought I was a supernatural. He helped me rebury the bodies. The next time was while we were on the run. We were in an old abandoned house and a homeless man had died in a room a while ago. There wasn't much odor or anything that would have clued me into their being a body around. I woke up and … well, Derek was on top of me, trying to keep me from seeing him. I freaked out – you just don't wake someone up like _that_.

"He was even less pleased with being summoned. I guess he had been summoned before by others, he talked about teenagers not letting him rest in peace and things along those lines. He thought we were doing some sort of satanic ritual or something." Chloe shrugged.

"I … well, I'll skip the animal ones, those are just uncomfortable to think about."

"Animals?"

"Bats, birds, dogs, rabbits," Chloe listed. Jaime shuddered.

"The next time, I was taken to a cemetery for proper necromancer training. The ground split open. I … I could feel them all, they were all so close. A casket that was being carried to the gravesite … he woke up."

"And you handled it like the rest? You … released them?"

Chloe nodded.

"But how? If you didn't have the herbs or rituals, there … how did you do it?"

"I pushed them, mentally," Chloe said. "Isn't that how you're supposed to do it?"

"Oh Chloe, you … you're never supposed to do that. You … you can't ever do that again, not unless it is something severe, like your life is in danger."

"Why?"

"It … it sends them where they don't belong, I suppose is the easiest way to explain it. You could send someone that is perfectly nice to a hell dimension. Likewise, you can send scum to a much nicer retirement. Or, and this is a theory, you could destroy the soul all together."

"Oh," Chloe quietly replied.

"I … I can't say I've ever heard of anything like this. Who did you say was with you again at the graveyard?"

"Tori was. She … she's another experiment. She's a witch-sorcerer hybrid. But my supposed trainer was Margaret, I don't think I ever heard her last name. She was older though, very cold. She … she thought I was lying about what I could do. When she saw what happened at the graveyard – even after I asked her if I could stop but she pressed me onwards – she … she decided to turn us over back to the St. Clouds. She used that as proof that the 'project failures' were simply too dangerous to live."

Jaime leaned against the headboard.

"I don't know what you want me to do, Chloe. If everything you said is true … I don't think there is much I can do for you. We might be able to do some basic training, find some management, but I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for."

"But you're on the council, right? Surely you know someone that could help me."

"You know about the council?"

"The interracial council, right? It's made up of different representatives of different races. It's supposed to help make sure that balance is kept in check and that no one is trying to kill off another."

"That's … I guess that is one way to put it," Jaime said, cocking her head. "But we do much more than that. We make sure that there is a place to air grievances – "

"This is my grievance. Why didn't you all stop the experiments? Why did you let them happen?"

"Chloe," Jaime started, "I wasn't on the council then. Honestly … up until the past decade or so, the council was …" she trailed off. "It wasn't as effective as it is now."

"You mean before the Cabals became involved."

That grabbed Jaime's attention.

"No – there isn't any involvement by the Cabals with any council matters."

"But isn't the witch married to the heir to the Cortez Cabal? And they're fostering a witch with Nast Cabal ties? Ties that lead directly to the Nast CEO? Or, well, former CEO?"

"Yes, but, the Cabals don't have any influence on the council and what we decide to do … wait, former CEO?"

"Yeah, former. Don't you know that Sean is dead?"

"No, he's not. You've been lied to, clearly," Jaime snapped.

"We found his body. It was buried in the woods not too far from where the Nasts kept us hidden."

"Wait – you said that the plan was for you to be turned over to the St. Clouds."

Chloe sighed. "It was … until we managed to damage the research facility where they started the experiments. Or at least, our group. The St. Clouds decided we weren't worth the trouble after all of that. The Nasts though … they knew about us since they kidnapped Derek's adoptive dad and then let him go. We," Chloe stopped for a moment, biting her lip. It felt foolish to explain this part. It reminded her of how naïve they still were. "We made a deal with the Nasts when we met up with another group of experiments, Project Phoenix. We would live under Nasts control and supposedly have anything we could ever desire. When we turned eighteen, we'd be free to leave or free to work for them."

Jaime rubbed her head. "Chloe … you realize this is quite a stretch for me to believe all of this. Different Cabals, _Sean_ being dead, _experiments_ …"

Chloe sighed. "I wish it wasn't. I haven't tried summoning Sean, but I know Derek wouldn't lie to me. He found his grave in the woods. I don't know why he was killed, who did it, or why they decided to bury him by where we lived. I guess they thought it was remote enough that he'd never be found."

"Sean can't be dead," Jaime repeated softly.

"He's just one man. Everyone dies eventually."

Jaime lifted her head up to meet Chloe's eyes. "And did you have any involvement?"

"_No_. I mean, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Nasts, not after they continued to lie to us and keep on experimenting –"

"Stop, stop right there," Jaime interrupted. "We … we can continue this line of discussion and sort out all of the lies later. The important thing is trying to figure out a way to get out of here, you, your aunt, your boyfriend, and me. We need to get out of here. You can explain all of this to the council and we can take it from there since there are multiple races involved."

Chloe started to reply but Jaime held her hand up.

"Right, of course," Chloe snorted. "You don't want to think you're the bad guy so I'm just making up this entire elaborate scheme for … what? For kicks? You want to see what they're done to us? You want to see what they've done to me? I summon dead dogs or _worse_ in my sleep. I see residuals almost anywhere we go. I have spirits flock to me. I have this necklace that isn't even doing its job anymore but I can't take it off because then all of hell would break loose. Whatever it's supposed to do, it isn't. All it seemingly is anymore is a glorified mood ring that keeps changing colors the more I use my powers."

Jaime's eyes shifted to her necklace. She started to reply but Chloe was already gone.

* * *

"I can't believe she didn't believe me," Chloe paced.

"It is … complicated," Lauren admitted. "It's a lot to take in. You have to remember, she probably isn't going to trust us for a while. She doesn't know that we're telling her the truth."

Chloe pointed at the files. "_That_ is the proof."

"Chloe, you're going to need to slow things down, okay?" Derek had finally entered the conversation. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

She looked at the two of them. They were in agreement, for once, but it was _against_ her.

"You just need to give her some space, or at least try not to give any more information unless she asks for it. Remember, she's supposed to help you. You need to get on her good side," Derek added.

Chloe rolled her eyes.

"You need to take this seriously, Chloe," Lauren added. "If she isn't the right trainer, so be it, but she would know who that would be. Just … slow things down some."

"You don't get it, I don't think we really have _time_ to slow things down," Chloe hissed. "Liz could pop back in here at any moment and we're not ready, we're not ready at all."

"Has Liz contacted you?" Lauren asked.

Chloe shook her head.

"That's unfortunate, but we'll have to keep an option for her to pop back in. You think she'll be able to get past the runes?"

"I don't know. Maybe? I'm guessing that she knows about them. That or maybe she expects me to make regular trips outside of them to check for her? But I don't _want_ too."

"Chloe, we all do things we don't want to. You have to keep yourself open to her."

"But –"

"Chloe, just stop it. You can't have everything go your way all of the time. We do our best to make allowances, but … you're acting like a brat and it isn't very reassuring."

"Saying that I'm uncomfortable with something isn't being a brat. It's about knowing my limits and what I'm comfortable with."

Lauren sighed and gave a brief glance over to Derek.

Chloe looked over to Derek but he didn't say anything in her defense. Not that she necessarily wanted him too – she could handle her own aunt, thank you very much – but it stung to see that he agreed with her.

* * *

Finding a secluded place to mope was difficult when her self-imposed restrictions kept her to the house. She thought about sitting in the truck but that would only raise suspicion that she was trying to make a getaway.

She settled for moping in the bathroom. It wasn't dignified. It wasn't exactly what she had in mind. It did serve as a stark reminder of the situation she was in and how she was wrong in this instance. Aunt Lauren and Derek did have a point. She _did_ tell Jaime a lot and expected her to simply take it at face value from a complete stranger. A stranger that was the cause, or alleged cause if Jaime didn't believe her, of Jaime's kidnapping. Everything ranging from Sean, to the experiments, to what the Pack and council didn't do when the experiments were going on …

It was a lot for her to handle and she had been processing this for almost six years now. She had managed to accept that she was a necromancer relatively easy. She sighed. Of course, she didn't exactly have that confirmed for her and just told to just accept it. No, Derek had put out little pieces of information so that she could look into it more and come to her own conclusions about her abilities. If Derek had just told her that she was a necromancer and all of what that entailed and just expected her to deal with it, she probably would have handled it much worse than Jaime.

She sighed. It was just being cooped up in here, like rats, that was eating away at her. She knew that they would be leaving soon. They _had_ to. But in order to do that, they needed to make sure Jaime would be with them. She couldn't leave Jaime behind. Jaime was Chloe's responsibility and it was up to her to make things right.

* * *

Chloe knocked on the door. She heard the Jaime mutter something, the bed squeak and the thud of Jaime's feet hitting the floor.

Jaime opened the door, not very impressed that it was Chloe on the other side.

"We got off on the wrong foot," Chloe blurted out.

Jaime smirked. "You think so?"

Chloe stepped inside and closed the door. She remained close to it. Jaime went and sat back on the bed.

"I … I want to apologize. I shouldn't have acted like that. It's a lot to take in at one time and I shouldn't have expected you to just believe everything I said."

Jaime eyed her.

"I was hoping … that somehow, we might be able to start over?"

"A good step in that direction is figuring out how we're all going to get out of here."

* * *

Chloe wanted desperately wanted nothing more than just to go to bad and wake up at Badger Lake. This was all getting too big. Everything seemed like they were minor pieces in an overall grander scheme. Back at Badger Lake, she and Derek would have late night coffee dates. Derek would grumble about how it seemingly never stopped snowing and that he wouldn't get to put up the snow shovel until May.

Simon and Tori would email them both, telling them about the latest news in their lives. Simon's usually was a bit of a mish mash of school and little notes of who he was or wasn't currently dating. Tori's usually consisted of something moronic some jerk at school tried to pull on her and her clever retort or discrete spell. It made Derek nervous that she would even admit to such things, but Tori brushed it off. Chloe pointed out that most likely she only _wished_ she did and only threw that in there to get Derek all worked up.

Both of their emails usually consisted of hints of open invitations for them. Chloe knew that Derek wanted to go. He would thrive in a college environment. Academics all day, studying whatever he wanted? Problems that looked more like a paragraph instead of an equation? Logic problems that left Chloe double and triple checking her diagrams? It would be heaven for Derek. She knew that he wanted to go there. She wanted him to go there. The only problem was that he wouldn't leave her to do it. Online classes weren't the same. Antisocial as he was, there were benefits as to having an actual professor at the front of the class instead of a video or a slideshow presentation.

The original plan was that Derek would simply wait the one year for Chloe since she was one year academically behind the rest of them due to her age. That was the original plan. Like so many well intentioned plans, it went up in smokes as soon as the _incident_ happened. College changed from a definite to a possibility.

Stubborn as he was, Derek didn't go like he originally planned. He didn't even apply to any universities. Chloe wasn't sure what to do about it. She was terrified of him going and she was terrified of him staying. She wanted him to go – studying, learning, it was something that made Derek incredibly happy. It was an integral part of him. But, the thought of staying behind, everyone else going and moving on with their lives while she was still stuck at Badger Lake paralyzed her with fear. What if Derek met a smart girl that _liked_ physics? How in the world could she compete with that?

She had brought it up a few times but Derek always assured her that even if that were to happen – he didn't help matters when he said it wasn't a matter of if, but _when_ – he only had eyes for her.

Chloe sighed. If only dreams did come true, all of their problems could just disappear.

"Have you made up with Jaime yet?"

Chloe saw that Lauren was still looking over some things. Chloe thought she would have been in bed hours ago. Jaime only recently woken up from a nap and had asked her to fetch her something to eat.

"I'm working on it. Food tends to help," Chloe said. She was carrying a tray of various cheeses, fruits, and a sandwich.

"Just remember Chloe, this … this is important. We will only have one chance, so we need to make sure that we have everyone on board when the time comes. It will have to be soon. I don't imagine that we'll be sitting here for very long."

Chloe nodded and took the tray upstairs.

She had to make this work.

* * *

"Is Malcolm gone?"

"Yeah, he headed out early this morning. He didn't say when he was heading back. Keith is still around," Nate lowered his voice. "So make sure you're careful. I'd say warn Jaime but I don't want her to freak out too much. Just try to stay close to her whenever you can. Do that rocky stuff, you know."

"Rocky stuff?"

"You know, just train all day, train until you can't think straight anymore."

"Oh, you mean – gotcha, _Rocky_."

Chloe headed back upstairs with the breakfast tray. She and Jaime had stayed up late last night talking. It wasn't about being a necromancer, not really. It was more of them getting to know one another. Jaime's family was well aware of their supernatural abilities. Chloe didn't know if she envied that or not. Waking up one day to see ghosts were one thing, knowing that that day would eventually come was another.

Chloe thought she heard something moving upstairs. It was probably just Jaime going back to the room.

She made her way upstairs and stopped in front of the door. She shifted the tray and opened the door carefully and walked in. Jaime wasn't anywhere to be found. She shrugged and set the tray on the bed. Jaime must have been heading to the bathroom instead of from. She'd wait a few minutes and see if that was the case.

Jaime did return a minute or two later.

"Chloe," she lowered her voice. "I heard you talking downstairs. I wasn't spying, but I couldn't help overhear it."

"Okay…"

"Do you know Malcolm's last name?"

"Danvers, why?"

Jaime covered her mouth with her hand. She looked as though she was going to be sick.


	2. Twisted Tales

**A/N: **Thanks for checking this chapter out! Like previous times - **first ten reviewers receive a drabble of their** **choice!** You want some fluffy Chlerek? Leave a review and I'll make it happen.

Are you reading the new online Chloe novella, _Atoning_? We have a forum here where we're talking about it! You can find it in the DP forum section under 'Atoning - Chloe novella' or use the link in my profile.

I also want to address something here - often times, when you are writing a story, there are some scenes that are very clearly spelled out that you are writing towards. This chapter? There are several of those scenes in this chapter but there is one **major** one that came to me shortly after coming up with the idea of the overall story. I thought that it was in chapter 3 (and it was originally before I decided to clump them together for a larger one since I know I prefer reading long chapters!) but it is now ... here.

So far this has been my favorite chapter to write and will be among my top favorite chapters once the entire story is finished.

Here is something cryptic to set the tone: Be careful what you wish for.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Darkest Powers_ or the _Otherworld_ series by Kelley Armstrong.

* * *

**Chapter 2: Twisted Tales**

"Is there something wrong? Do … do you know him?"

Jaime stood up and paced the room. She reached down and touched her ankle. There was a small tattoo there, something that Chloe couldn't quite make out, but Jaime seemed fretful about it. She was rubbing her face, her eyes bouncing around the room, searching for something.

"What is it?" Chloe asked. She knew that Malcolm had a less than stellar reputation; someone who trained Mr. Chainsaw couldn't _not _have one lurking about. "Is … Is it because he's a werewolf?"

Jaime rolled her eyes, "God no, Chloe. I'm not a racist like that. You … you said you were working on a plan to get out of here? I don't trust you, not one hundred percent at least, but I know that we need to get out of here if he is involved."

"Can't you –"

"There will be time for that later, _if_ we make it out." Jamie looked down at her ankle and sighed. She muttered something under her breath but Chloe couldn't catch it. "Your aunt … you said she was a doctor?"

Chloe nodded.

Jaime looked down at the tattoo, her face set.

* * *

"I really don't think that is necessary," Lauren repeated herself. Chloe had heard Lauren tell her about times where she had to stand firm with patients and avoiding unnecessary procedures.

"It absolutely is. I don't know how he could have possibly known."

"Known what?"

Jaime pointed down at her tattoo. "I need this _gone_. Jeremy can't come here. He _can't_."

"How is a tattoo going to bring him here," Lauren asked.

"It …"Jaime trailed off, clinching her fists, searching for a way to explain it. "It's like a GPS signal. He will be able to find me here and Malcolm must somehow know about it, because otherwise, I wouldn't be here."

"What is the issue between Malcolm and Jeremy? Is it a Pack vs mutt issue?"

Jaime gave Chloe, Lauren, and Derek all a searching look. "You don't know? Malcolm is Jeremy's father. Malcolm … he … we all _thought_ he was dead. If he's not, that means that it's only a matter of time before he makes Jeremy's life a living hell _again_ and I'm not going to be used like that against him."

"I'm not slicing it off. Even if I was willing, I don't have any of the proper equipment."

"The runes," Derek interjected. "It's possible that they're blocking whatever signal or link you have. It blocks ghosts."

"This is different," Jaime argued.

Lauren shook her head. "I think Derek might be right. These seem to be doing their job and are pretty powerful. I'm assuming that you haven't had any contact with the dead since you've been here? It's liable that it's blocking all signals – going in _and_ out."

Jaime buried her head in her hands. "It doesn't work that way."

Lauren shook her head.

Jaime sighed. "Fine, but that means we leave _tomorrow, _if not _today_."

* * *

Lauren was in agreement with Jaime. The sooner they left, the sooner they could stop looking over their shoulder. There was no question in either Jaime's or Lauren's minds as to if they were leaving, they simply were.

Chloe didn't know. She wanted to go. She wanted to go anywhere but here. She wanted to make sure her aunt made it out okay, maybe learn a thing or two from Jaime if they progressed that far, what she would give to see her dad again.

There was a massive anchor weighing her down. She had promised Liz that she would stay until she made contact again. It wasn't safe for her out there. She wasn't sure why exactly but Liz's voice echoed in her thoughts. Liz rarely used a stern tone, even when they were breaking Derek out of the Cains' custody the first time.

Despite herself, she smiled when she remembered her frantic cries, searching for some sort of a weapon. She ended up with a plate that she used to smash over Carter's head.

"There's nothing here," Liz had yelled. "The stupid furniture is bolted down to the floor!" She had disappeared into one of the rooms and found a decorative plate hanging on the wall. She had joked for weeks afterwards about how most people could make knives dangerous, but she could take out a werewolf with a plate.

Liz wouldn't have warned her if it wasn't serious. Liz, good intentions, full of heart, always looking on the bright side wouldn't have said any of those things unless she knew they were a fact and that it was dangerous.

There was something else holding her back too.

Derek.

Could she leave him behind? If she left, would she ever see him again or would she only see his ghost? How on earth could she explain to Kit, Simon, Tori, everyone that she left him behind so that she could escape? It would be one thing if Derek was staying because someone needed to, someone needed to be the sacrifice that let the others get away. It didn't feel as though this was that type of situation.

He didn't want to leave.

She tried to reverse the situation in her head but quickly dismissed it. Derek would blindly follow her into an active volcano. He wouldn't leave her in order to live.

She wanted too, though. She selfishly wanted too. She didn't want to die.

* * *

Jaime and Lauren spent the afternoon going over Chloe's files. Lauren knew there wouldn't be any possible way of sneaking them out when they escaped. Jaime started to protest but stopped once she saw how massive it all was. They compromised; Jaime needed information about Chloe and the experiments to bring to the council. If she was going to argue their case, she needed to be able to prove it with substantial evidence.

Derek had already gone through his file and pulled out what he had felt was important enough for them to steal. Lauren and Jaime were going through Chloe's with a fine toothed comb.

"I need the genealogical records," Jaime argued quietly. "I need to know about your family and if there are any other connections to this. It most likely isn't anything, but we might be able to track down more talented individuals. Sometimes families tend to have certain traits, specialties if you like, passed down. If we can find a living relative, they'll be more use to Chloe than I would."

Chloe sat there, listening to them going over what Jaime needed, the council needed, and what Chloe would need. She still didn't know what was in those pages. She wasn't sure if she really wanted to know. She knew enough right now, she felt. She knew that she was stronger than she should be and she knew that she could explain that by her bloodline, her dad's unknowingly magician blood.

"Is there a magician representative," Chloe asked.

Jaime shook her head. "They're a pretty minor race. Off hand, I don't know if I've ever met one. Even then, they wouldn't have a seat since they're related to sorcerers."

Chloe sighed. If Jaime had known one, perhaps that could be something that she could use to bring her dad into her life – this part of her life. They had always had an open relationship, up until she started seeing ghosts. They weren't particularly close but Chloe knew that she could always talk to him.

She wasn't sure what she was going to do. It looked as though they were almost finished. Derek had a few rough plans that he was working on. He would escort them to the woods and they would be on their own after that, they knew that much. He couldn't go too far with them; his scent would give it away.

Chloe still didn't know what she was going to do. Talking to Derek was out of the question. He'd bark an order about how she didn't have a choice. He'd go on about how he couldn't explain why, but he felt as though he couldn't leave the Cains. They would argue back and forth and just end up emotionally spent.

No, she couldn't talk to him. Whatever the decision, it would have to happen out there, when it was happening. She would have to see what was going on both sides and hope that her gut would prove right.

She knew it as an idiotic plan. Hope for the best wasn't exactly full of hope here. Either she left Derek behind and possibly lose him forever or stay here and hope that no harm would come to her. Would Malcolm attack the Pack before they could make contact with them? Would Derek be hurt? Would the Pack let Derek live, despite siding with the Cains if she went with Jaime and Lauren? Chloe knew the likelihood of the last was close to zero.

Add in the fact that she didn't even know if the plan had been full formed yet. Derek said he would work on it, but in order to do that, he needed to spend time with the Cains to see what they had planned for this evening. It wouldn't do them any good if they wouldn't be able to get downstairs without being spotted.

They would need their Change soon. Derek still didn't Change with them, so it wouldn't look out of the ordinary or suspicious if he stayed behind. Since making the deal with Malcolm, the Cains had started treating him differently, like they had known him his entire life instead of only a handful of weeks. She saw glimpses of how he was with Simon and Kit, glimpses of him being completely at ease, comfortable. It felt like a betrayal of sorts. Kit and Simon took him in when no one else would and yet, he could so easily cast them aside because he found some people with similar DNA?

Chloe went back upstairs. She could at least check her bag again. They had found a few discarded bags in one of the closets earlier. Lauren had fewer things than she did and Jaime didn't have anything. It was just a matter of checking her bag, really. She didn't even know if she would be using it or if it would still be here tomorrow. She needed to allow herself some flexibility and options.

* * *

The day was dragging by. She tried to reassure herself that she just needed to act normal and no one would suspect that they were up to anything. Why would they when Derek had agreed to stay with them? Theo, at least, seemed to view them as a package deal. They were probably planning on letting Aunt Lauren go sometime soon, considering that there were only so many files to go through and she wouldn't really have anything to do once she was done with that. Or at least, that was the plan. If they were planning on attacking the Pack, odds are that there would be injuries and having a doctor on hand, a doctor that knew some about werewolves, could prove very convenient and very tempting to keep on hand.

Chloe pulled out the contents of her bag and spilled them on the bed. Runes, a few changes of clothes, and the newspaper she had taken from the diner. She opened it up and looked at her dad's picture. The paper was lined with creases from her constantly taking it out, looking at it, and having to put it back away. She had tried to keep his picture crease free but a few times there was an unexpected knock at the door and she reacted without thinking.

It didn't matter what Lauren wanted to do, Chloe had to tell him. He needed to know about all of this. Maybe she wouldn't tell him about that he was actually a supernatural too, a magician, at first. She would first need to let it sink in and let him have time to adjust to things. She missed having him around. She was staring at the picture when Derek came in and sat down beside her. He didn't say anything, only merely gave a quick glance to see what she was looking at.

"It's like we thought. They're all going out into the woods a little past sundown to Change."

Chloe took in a deep, shuddering breath and slowly let it out. Was this their last few hours together or was it the simply the end of the day?

"I'll find you," Derek said slowly. "I don't want you to ever worry about that."

"What if you can't?"

Derek put his arm around her and tried to pull her in close. She didn't allow him to move her. He sighed and let his arm drop.

"This is what is best for me, Chloe. I … I can't explain it. I wish I could. You don't know how much I wish I could. This isn't a rational thing, I know, and I can't really expect you to just understand it. It's something … primal, I suppose. Lauren found some things in the file that might explain it, remember? She said she was going to tell you about it."

"She said a few things about it. It boils down to you just giving into groupthink and letting us hang out to dry."

Derek was quiet.

Chloe continued, "You and I both know that the second we run into anything out there, its game over for all of us. We don't have any offensive abilities. I don't even know how strong of a necromancer Jamie is. I'm not supposed to summon a thing and Lauren is just a human. We're toast. Possibly literally if the Cains decide that we know too much."

Derek still remained quiet. Chloe wanted him to say _something_. He needed to _explain_ himself, justify why the Cains were more important than _her_.

"So this is it then? Goodbye?"

"Chloe, it's not –"

"It is and you and I both know it. One of us isn't long for this world. _Y_ou can change all of that if you come with us. _You_," she poked him in the arm, "are the one that is purposely choosing to stay behind."

"It isn't a matter of choice –"

"It is, Derek, it really is," Chloe turned to him. Her eyes were starting to water, but she wasn't sure if it was from anger or fear that this truly was _it_. "You are choosing this action. This isn't some sort of medieval era. No one will think twice if you back out on your deal with Malcolm _fucking _Danvers. It isn't as though he's some sort of saint that would never think twice about backstabbing someone. He is going after his own _son_. For a group that is supposed to value family, that doesn't seem very typical or look like something that will just be forgotten."

"I'm aware of that. It is complicated. All of this is complicated."

"It's only complicated because you're letting it become complicated."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Chloe got up and let her hands fall to her sides. She couldn't stand the touch of his arm anymore. She turned to him, searching his face. Where had the Derek she known, loved, adored gone? The Derek that was logical and rational to a fault, the at times infuriatingly stubborn, and the overcautious one? Where was he now? She didn't see him before her. She saw someone she didn't know. She saw someone who thought so little of his life that he was throwing it away to the first person that came along promising a grandiose death. She saw someone who had turned his back on everything that they had gone through together because he had found something better.

"It means that you're throwing everything away for a group of people that three months ago were complete strangers."

"They're fam –"

"_No_," Chloe interrupted him. "They're not. What about Kit? What in the hell am I supposed to tell Simon? You think Tori isn't going to go on some rampage?" She shook her head; she could feel her hands were shaking with anger. "Kit took you _in_ and raised you as _his son_. He saw the way you were being treated and did something about it. Simon … how am I supposed to explain this to him? Tell him that he, they weren't good enough? That because there isn't a biological link that they ultimately don't matter to you? That all of the times that you two were looking out for each other, it was just some sort of temporary fix until you could find your 'own kind'?"

Derek left the bed and passed her, not saying a word, not looking at her. "I'm not going to have this conversation," he said quietly as he reached for the door knob.

"And what about me," she asked softly, her eyes finally over encumbered with tears that she felt the first cascading wave fall down her cheeks.

Derek let his hand fall short of the knob and he pounded his fist against the closed door. He snuck a glance at her but she couldn't make out his face. Her vision was still distorted, too watery to see anything.

"You and I both know that you matter a great deal. There isn't a way that I can use to explain that you matter a great deal, more than you ever know."

"But it isn't enough," Chloe choked out. "It isn't enough." She shook her head slowly. She wanted to crumple on the floor. She wanted to melt, to evaporate, to simply case to exist. She hadn't prepared herself for this conversation. Perhaps if she had, it wouldn't feel as though she was bleeding out.

"It is enough," Derek said. He wasn't by the door anymore. He was there, right in front of her, his voice quiet, soothing, his fingers wiping away the sea. "It's because of you I have to do this. I don't want for us to live our lives on the run. _This _is the opportunity to change all of that. We could have a _home_, a _normal_ life. We wouldn't have to worry about Cabals or the Edison Group, or the Pack. We could _live_," he said, bringing her into his chest.

Chloe cried until she felt the well go dry but even that wasn't enough. She still felt sorrow, she still felt loss, she still felt empty inside. Things couldn't be the same, not as they were before. They weren't teenagers and they knew they were not invincible. While Derek's reasons sounded good, they felt hollow to her. Fear made them hollow.

Could she do it? Could she put herself on the run without him? She had never done it before. Well, she had, but then it turned out that Rae had double crossed all of them even before the journey started and Lauren followed suit. It was only with Derek that they had managed to flee, him finding her in the corner of the warehouse. Her being ecstatic that they had found each other, she had the medical kit that she thought Simon desperately needed, that they could finally all make it out together. They could all escape and have a chance of a better life.

She felt him kiss her but her lips remained where they were, frozen in place.

"I love you, Chloe, you know it's true. I'm doing this for us."

With a fleeting touch to her face, he was gone.

* * *

Lauren and Jaime came in sometime afterwards. Chloe wasn't sure when. It could have been five minutes; it could have been two hours. Her brain was reeling. She hadn't expected that. A small part of her, somewhere, must have thought that she could convince Derek that what he was doing wasn't right. She thought she had known him. Perhaps she still did, but he was changing in an unexpected way.

Family had always been important to him.

She just didn't realize that she didn't qualify.

* * *

There wasn't any question of what she would be doing now. She would have to go. There would be no way Derek would let her stay, nor did she want to, not anymore. It was as though a fog had been lifted and she could see clearly for the first time in weeks.

Jaime and Lauren said they had finalized the plan. Lauren knew the layout of the house, Derek knew what the Cains would be doing later, and Jaime knew a thing or two about being kidnapped and how typically people acted afterwards.

She listened to Jaime as she explained the plan. It was simple – simple was better, Jaime insisted – but it still carried risks. If they were caught, well, it was better not to think of that. Chloe nodded along, taking in everything that had been laid out. Derek wasn't with them, he was downstairs. She could hear him laughing at something.

It shouldn't have stung, but it did, sharply and painfully. Simon always said that before Chloe, he only managed to make Derek laugh on occasion and it was never a full on laugh, merely a chuckle now and then. It sent chills down her spine, his laugh booming throughout the halls.

Chloe shook her head. She couldn't think about Simon, not now. When he heard what happened, his fury would be more than enough for both of them to handle. If Tori was also with him when she told him …

She closed her eyes. She couldn't think about them, not right now. It tore into her heart, deeper and deeper each time.

It wasn't supposed to go this way.

* * *

She tried to eat at dinner, she did. She took her meal later with Jaime and Lauren. There were three plates set on the counter. There wasn't as much food as there usually was but it was still plenty for the three of them.

Nate was the only one left in the kitchen, tasked with the arduous task of dishes. Once Jaime and Lauren were absorbed into their own conversation, he sat down beside her.

"You okay?"

Chloe could barely bring herself to look at him. Every time she saw him, heard him, she could feel his lips on hers all over again.

"I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"

Nate shrugged. Lauren and Jaime cast a quick glance over at them and then continued their conversation.

He sat there for a minute and then awkwardly patted her on the back.

Lauren and Jaime excused themselves shortly afterwards but Chloe stared at the meatloaf in front of her.

"It's not going to bite you, I promise," Nate said, sitting down to her again.

She couldn't bring herself to look at him. He was one of the reasons Derek was staying. Perhaps she should tell Derek about how he kissed her, how he tried to reason why she should be with _him_ instead of Derek. That would certainly change something, wouldn't it?

Derek had always been the jealous type. Sometimes he was too jealous and she had to tell him to back off. He did – although sometimes it did take a few curt reminders to her about how she wasn't some piece of property that he had branded.

"It's a bit dry," she croaked out.

"Well, Granddaddy never promised that he'd keep you fed on _good_ food; that I can guarantee."

"Yeah," she said softly.

"Look – I get it, I'm not your favorite person, but you'd have to be some sort of special kind of blind not to see that you're hurting right now. Is there something? Something that I can do or help, or something?"

Chloe bit her lip. Nate could be dumber than a bag of bricks but at least he had a heart, he seemed to care about everyone. It'd be easy – he and Derek looked similar enough but she couldn't seriously keep that thought in her head for more than a second. No, it'd sting too much. He'd be a reminder of what she had had once and lost. He'd be a reminder of failed dreams. Even if he did come along – which he wouldn't, he wouldn't leave everyone behind – it'd only raise more suspicion. The Cains probably wouldn't come looking for them, but they would go looking for Nate. He was _family_.

"I … Well, I couldn't help but overhear that you and Derek fighting earlier. He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"I … no, he didn't. It was nothing really, just a big misunderstanding on things, that's all."

Nate leaned back in his chair. "I hope you'll work it out soon. I can't say I enjoy seeing you upset. Carter isn't happy either – Derek dragged him outside afterwards and I don't think Carter even landed a punch before he had to tap out."

"He … he took it out on Carter?"

"That's what it looked like to me. He stormed downstairs, grabbed Carter by the collar, and there they went." Nate paused; he seemed to be looking how to pick his words carefully. He started to reach out towards he but pulled his hand back, thinking better of it at the last moment.

"You sure there isn't anything you want to talk about? I don't care if Derek told you to keep quiet about something – if you tell me in confidence; I'm not going to tell a soul."

Chloe looked at him. It'd be so easy to just spill everything out to him. Tell him how she felt about his _family_, how odd Derek had been behaving lately, how she desperately needed to get out, away from all of _them_. It would be easy and that was exactly why she couldn't tell him.

She couldn't tell him because she knew that he'd do his best to help her and probably would get caught in the crossfire when his actions came to light. As much as she couldn't believe that he thought she was interested in him, she didn't want him to suffer because he had feelings for her. She didn't want to put him in a bad situation. It was tempting though. Let Nate help her in ways that Derek wouldn't. It was immature and selfish, but Chloe held the feeling there.

"Just a misunderstanding," she gave him a weak smile. "Besides, he knows that if he ever tried anything physical with me, he'd never be able to get a good night's sleep ever again."

Nate paused and slightly cocked his head. It reminded of her of how dogs tilt their heads at strange noises and she couldn't help herself but smile a real smile.

"Just … I can do a lot of stuff, stuff that makes your abilities look like cute puppies," she said. She stood up, and left the kitchen but looked back over her shoulder. Nate was still sitting there, staring at where she had been.

* * *

Chloe quietly sneaked down the stairs, her bag thumping against her thigh. She was the last one to head downstairs. Derek went first, followed by Lauren and then Jaime. Chloe kept to the rear. The longer she was inside, the better for them all. They didn't need any undead creatures to complicate things even further.

The light was on in the office. Was someone looking for Lauren or Derek? Or was it something else? Had the Cains also been reading their files in the middle of the night, seeing what they could use to their advantage? They should still all be out in the woods. Derek said they would most likely stay out there all night.

She quietly padded over to the doorway, stopping next to it. She listened but didn't hear anything or anyone in there. Perhaps Lauren grabbed something at the last minute and forgot to turn off the light?

She cast a quick look around. No one was coming. She would just sneak in there, turn off the light, and then resume her path going outside.

She quickly looked inside and pulled back. She didn't see anyone in there. Someone simply must have forgotten to turn off the light; that was all.

She went back to the doorway and froze. Lauren was still at the desk, frantically shifting through piles of papers.

"Aunt Lauren," she hissed, "what are you doing? Whatever you're looking for, it isn't worth it," she said quietly.

Lauren didn't respond, only she shifted through papers faster. A pile fell and she disappeared behind a chair to pick them up.

"We have to _go,_" Chloe hissed. She looked behind her, making sure that no one had come back into the house early.

Lauren still didn't respond. Lauren suddenly looked up and her eyes widened. Chloe looked behind her – she didn't see anything.

"Let's go," Chloe said, she tried to grab Lauren's arm but Lauren moved at the last second. She missed. Lauren's eyes' widened and Chloe spun around to see what she was looking at.

She saw what Lauren saw now. Keith had come in. Chloe had rarely seen him smile. It unnerved her every time she saw it. It was predatory. There was nothing warm and fuzzy to it. It was a smile that greeted its prey.

Chloe couldn't make out what he said. Was he whispering? His eyes were focused solely on Lauren. Chloe didn't know if she needed to yell or scream or _something_.

Keith slowly strode towards Lauren. Lauren held her ground, her eyes keeping steady with his. Chloe noticed that the papers that Lauren was shuffling were also scattered underneath the chair. Surely she was mistaken; it just _looked_ like the same pieces of paper. She didn't get a good look at what Lauren was shuffling, she was just guessing at things. She probably saw those pages a day or two ago and her brain remembered them.

Only now she knew something was wrong.

Keith was talking but she didn't hear anything. Lauren wasn't replying but Chloe could see that she was shaking. Chloe swallowed hard. No, no, it wasn't what she was thinking.

She could see that Keith was laughing, but there wasn't any sound. Was it her? Was she not hearing anything because of stress, shock? Surely that was what was going on. It was the stress that was causing her to not hear anything. It would all come rushing back to her any moment now, any moment. Her senses would wake up and drown her in an ocean of sounds.

Keith was only a hairsbreadth away from Lauren's hair. Chloe was just watching. She should have yelled out earlier. It was too late now. Whatever Keith was going to do, there was nothing that she could do to stop him.

She gripped her necklace. No, there _was_ something that she could do. Would she dare? Warning bells sounded in her head in reaction to the brash idea, Liz's warnings, the doctors at Badger Lake, her mom pleading with her to never take it off, no matter what was happening. She was shaking, she could feel it now.

Keith was grinning again. Did he have his canines filed down or were they naturally that pointed? Derek's wasn't that like.

It was the absurdity of noticing something as minute as the pointedness of canines hit Chloe like a bag of bricks and she realized that she needed to _do_ something. She looked at Keith. He was still focused on Lauren. What was he planning on doing? How long had he been in here, staring them down?

The movement was fluid, quick. The hairs on her neck stood up when he leaned in to the right side of her neck and gave a quick jerk. He pulled pack and smiled, looking at her. Chloe could see that Lauren was crying. She could see that she was bleeding. Did he bite her? She thought she had seen something fall but if something did … what would it be?

He smiled and the muscles under his arm began to ripple. Chloe recognized it. He was _Changing_. She backed up to the wall and gasped. His transformation ended at the arm and he grinned.

Keith had done it without any visible strain. It was as if he was opening a jar of olives in the kitchen. Just a simple slash, and Lauren fell, her eyes no longer seeing.

Chloe went over to her and stared at the _body _– her aunt – and she didn't know what to do. She was next, she was sure. She sat down next to her and went to close her eyes but she ran into something unexpected.

Her hand went through her.

She wasn't _here_.

She was already _dead_. She had _been_ dead for who knows how long.

Suddenly Lauren wasn't lying down on the ground next to her; she was back upright, looking through files.

Bile rose in Chloe's throat and she tried to keep it inside. She couldn't – she barely made it to a small trash can and she emptied her stomach's contents. She was shaking still, even more now that she knew that it was all a residual, something that would repeat itself for all of time.

It took great violence and fear to cause a residual to sear itself into a place. It … it didn't look particularly more violent than something that could be broadcast on television, but she couldn't hear what Keith had been saying. Whatever he was saying, it must have been terrifying enough for the actions to permanently become a part of this place.

"Chloe?"

She wiped off her chin and slowly turned around.

"I don't think the cooking was that bad," Nate said softly, barely coming inside the room.

"I … no, no, that wasn't it. I … shouldn't you be out on your run? I know Derek becomes testy when he doesn't get his and I thought tonight was the group's weekly run."

"It is, it is, just … things have been a bit off today. You haven't seen Keith, have you?"

Chloe's face paled. She tried to force herself to look only at Nate, not at his uncle's residual that was in front of Lauren, telling her horrible things.

"I … no, not lately," she stammered out. "If I see him, I'll let you know."

Nate nodded and started to head out the door. He paused and came back, sniffing the room.

"Chloe … did you get sick? You didn't manage to … cut yourself, or something, right?"

Chloe shook her head.

Nate slowly walked over to her. He moved a few things around on the floor and muttered "shit".

"Chloe, I need you to listen to me," he straightened up and held out his hand. "Derek's out there with Jaime, right?"

"N-n-n-no," she sputtered.

"Right, well, we're just going to take a trip to the woods with that bag you conveniently brought downstairs. We may or may not stumble into Derek and Jaime and then we'll have a quick meeting and you all can get along with your lives."

Chloe stood there, blankly looking at him. He knew?

Nate lost his patience and grabbed her arm. He took her bag from her and he led her out of the house. She let him.

* * *

Nate dragged her close to where they were all supposed to meet. If she had been in a functioning state, she would have asked him how he knew about it all, that they were leaving, where they were going, but she said nothing. She never really left the house. Lauren's death kept replaying in her head, over and over. She started to feel relief, after seeing it several times and realizing that her crying out for help wouldn't have made a difference. Lauren would have already been dead. It might have grabbed Keith's attention if he was somewhere in the house and she could have just as easily been another victim.

"What the hell are you doing with Chloe," Derek hissed. Jaime was not too far behind him.

"Lauren isn't coming," Nate said. "She … Keith got to her. I found Chloe … and I brought her here."

"What? How did you know to come here?"

"For supposedly having all of the smarts, you're awfully dumb," Nate grumbled. "Smell, remember?"

"This is all well and good, but doesn't think mean we need to leave _five minutes ago_," Jaime hissed.

Nate tossed Derek Chloe's bag. He let go of her arm.

"I'm not going with them," Derek said.

"The hell? If you're the smartest one of us, I don't know how we haven't choked on our spit while sleeping," Nate retorted. "If you don't go with them, you know what Keith is going to call for? A _hunt_. He'll say that they know too much, that they're going to turn over everything to the Pack and that if we want to keep breathing, they have to stop.

"Gods you're dumb," Nate sighed. "You may be book smart but like hell you have any sort of logic rattling in that head of yours. You go with them; Granddaddy won't let a hunt happen. He'll just plan to pick you up again, no harm, no foul. They'll think that they got spooked because of Lauren and that you went off because you're attached and all of that. Granddaddy won't hold that against you, not when he wants more kids running around."

"I don't –"

"Unless Chloe's been secretly having packages delivered, that bag should have some of your things in there. It's way too heavy to just be what we picked you up with."

"The files that Lauren was grabbing, you didn't happen to grab those," Jaime asking, peering around Nate and Chloe, seeing if any other Cains were coming.

"They're all in that bag," Nate pointed. "If not … well, just better hope they're in there."

Nate turned to Chloe.

"Chloe, I'm leaving now. Derek's got you now, you're fine, you're going to be fine," he tried to reassure her. She looked at his face, still not fully processing everything that was happening.

"What about you? Won't you get in trouble?"

"Nah, I imagine not," Nate smiled. "If I do, won't be the first, won't be the last. I'll be fine. We may have a nasty reputation but Granddaddy isn't going to cast me out. He's not going to know about it either," he nodded to Derek. "I just came out, following Chloe's trail and then I'm going to lose it because there is a creek not too far from here that you're going to go and visit, so they're going to lose it too," he added.

"What if you came with us, numbers and all," Chloe suggested.

"A second set of eyes would be helpful," Jaime added.

"I … my place is back there. Now, you all get along before they all tire themselves out in the woods."

Nate headed back to the house and Chloe watched him go.


	3. An Unfortunate Meeting

**A/N: **So ... uh, I will take it that most of you were stunned into silence after the last chapter. Hopefully I'll hear a bit more feedback this time around? Drabbles - as always - are for the first ten reviewers! We should have our next _Atoning_ chapter out next week! The forum is open for everyone! You can find it in the DP forum listing or use the link in my profile.

Speaking of - I'm now on tumblr! You can find the link to that on my profile. I'll be posting discussion links, characters, general _Otherworld_ news, and who knows what else.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything in the _Otherworld_ universe by Kelley Armstrong.

* * *

**Chapter 3: An Unfortunate Meeting**

The further they walked the worse Chloe felt. She thought she was going into shock. She had seen people die before – she had _killed_ before – but it was never this close, never this personal. Jaime was more than eager to take the lead, following Nate's instructions to the creek and they woefully dealt with the cold, icy water.

Derek was quiet. He hadn't said much of anything since she joined up with them. She knew that it was a bad sign but she couldn't bring herself to care, not at this moment. If Lauren hadn't … if Lauren was with them, she wouldn't have run into Nate, nor needed Nate to basically hold her hand and lead her through the plan that even he figured out. Perhaps he wasn't as dumb as he let everyone believe or maybe their plan was simply that moronic.

"Just a bit further," Jaime quietly called back. They were still in the stream, occasionally walking on the bed, just to go back into the water, the more confusing of a sparse trail, the better.

Chloe just followed. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her aunt there, shaking, knowing that her end had come and that no one could do anything about it.

She didn't know why her death had become a residual. They never were able to fully explain why, probably because there wasn't a definite reason as to why some deaths become residuals and others don't.

Jaime and Derek took turns taking the lead. Once they were out of the woods, they were at the road that led to town.

"It'd be too convenient to discover that one of you has a cell phone," Jaime asked.

* * *

The walk took longer than Chloe expected. Granted the last time she came it was snowing and there was already snow on the ground, it was still in a vehicle. Getting there by foot took much longer, especially since they doubled back several times to make their trail seem erratic.

Jaime didn't have any problems convincing the waitress to let her use the phone once they arrived at the diner. Derek led Chloe over to a booth and they both sat. Derek said something, she didn't make it out. His hand touched her and sounded returned to the world. It was loud, harsh, and overwhelming.

"Chloe? Can you talk to me, please?"

Chloe blinked. She was out of the fog that she had been in for the past few hours. Everything hit her at once – Derek's reasoning as to why he wouldn't come, Lauren's death, Nate dragging her out to the woods, Derek and Jaime leading her away. It all came rushing with such a force she felt the air forced from her lungs and she breathed heavily.

"I … I don't know," she said quietly. She looked up; Jaime was walking over to them.

"They'll be here soon. They were already on their way. We just need to hang tight for about an hour or so," she said, smiling for the first time. "Meanwhile, you two, eat up. I can't imagine the next time you're going to have a decent meal."

"They're going to … dispose of us, aren't they," Chloe quietly said.

Jaime shrugged. "It's not up to me. It helps that you all helped me to get out, but … well, we will have to see what happens when it happens."

"Do they know about Sean? We can tell them everything we know," Derek said.

Jamie shrugged again.

"This is entirely out of my hands. I can't say what they will or won't do, I don't have that authority. I can tell you that if you want to keep surviving, you have to tell the whole truth."

"The files should help, right?" Derek suggested. "I mean, surely they would be interested in that."

Jaime shrugged again and looked over the menu.

Derek stared at Chloe but she didn't return his gaze.

* * *

Their meal was fairly quiet, the waitress coming by to check on them created the most chatter.

Chloe felt that she was now a part of the living world again. She felt ghosts tugging at her, trying to whisper to her but not quite able to make their voices travel from their realm to hers. She looked out the window some. It was just another small, no name town. A few stoplights, the diner, and gas stations on both sides and that were pretty much all that she could see.

She watched a car drive by only to suddenly skid on the road, plow into a telephone pole, and burst into flames. She gasped, but no one else reacted to it. She looked at Derek who looked out there but shook his head. It was a confirmation of what she already suspected: another residual. She didn't used to see them this frequently but as she grew older, she saw more of them.

"Do you see that," she whispered to Jaime. "The car, out there," she tilted her head. Jaime leaned over and looked out the window.

"I don't see anything."

"You don't … see the residual?"

"No," she replied. She studied Chloe's face and her eyes drifted down to the pendant. "Are you … seeing anything else?"

"I don't think so. I'm still not the best at determining who is … who."

"That takes time and cooperative partners," Jaime replied. "There was one time I spent thirty minutes talking to someone at a coffee shop, only to find out that they weren't there when a girl asked if she could take the other chair."

A black SUV pulled up, interrupting their conversation, and after the doors closed, Derek inadvertently shifted. The Pack was here.

She watched as they hopped out of the vehicle, one, two, three, four – four full grown werewolves and … Chloe's eyes widened as the last person became visible.

The Alpha was with them.

* * *

The werewolves waited outside. Jaime didn't have to pay the tab, it turns out that a fan was nearby and she gave them an autograph as a way of saying thanks.

They followed Jaime out of the diner. Chloe wanted to grab Derek's hand but she didn't know if she could do it.

She got a better look at the werewolves. The two from the airport were here and she found herself grabbing Derek's hand without a second thought.

"Get in the car," the woman barked. Chloe and Derek were herded to the middle seat. A blond man and the Alpha were in the front and the two from the airport climbed into the back seat.

"What about Jaime," Chloe asked.

"You don't need to worry about her," the dark haired man replied.

"Drive," the Alpha barked and they were on the road.

* * *

They were at an old rest stop on the edge of town. They all remained in the car and everyone had their eyes on them.

"We're here and Jaime gave us her version of the events. We'd like to hear yours," the Alpha said.

"Where do you want me to start," Derek replied tersely. "Do you want me to start at the very beginning, when we were all created at the lab, do you want me to start when we were sold to different Cabals, or do you want me to start where we found Sean Nast dead in our woods? Or how about when we were coming to tell you about Sean, we were met with these two," he jerked his head back, gesturing at the men in the back seat, "and they told us to leave without even giving us the chance to talk?"

The Alpha crossed her arms. Chloe couldn't remember her name.

"Good to see that he lives up to the family reputation," the driver drawled. "Maybe this one will be more of a challenge to break than the last one."

Chloe eyed him. He seemed to take pleasure in issuing threats. She'd have to remember that.

"He's telling the truth," she added. "We have the files to back up the experiments, or at least our part of the experiments. There are others – sorcerers, a witch-sorcerer hybrid, supernatural types that were extinct until the Edison Group brought them back. They're … well, they were all in Canada. Most are off to college now, a mixture between Canada and the US."

A snort rang behind her. She turned around to see that it was the young blond.

"They _are_. Why would we lie about this?"

"Why not," the man behind her asked. "How do we know that this isn't just some scheme?"

"How do we know that you're not going to kill us and leave our bodies out in the woods," Chloe replied. "Because I swear, if you even start to think –"

Derek covered her mouth and she glared at him.

"I'll start with Sean. He's the catalyst in all of this."

* * *

Derek talked and talked about _how_ all of this started. The Pack mostly listened, every now and then one would ask a question but they were for the most part quiet.

"We thought we were doing the right thing. We _thought_ if we came to the Pack, you would investigate the issue."

"But why the Pack? Why not tell someone who worked in your town?"

Derek shifted uneasily. "I could smell that werewolves had been around his grave. I'm the only one in the area for miles around. I know _I _didn't do it. We hadn't seen Sean in months, he became busy I guess."

The Alpha ordered them all out of the car.

They were shoved and herded under the pavilion. The wind had picked up and it seemingly cut through the jacket she had on. She really needed better winter clothes.

The Alpha – Elena, Chloe deduced, remembering that Jaime had thrown that name out there on their walk to town – watched them, her arms crossed. She didn't seem bothered by the wind, none of them did. A so called 'perk' of being a werewolf was never being too worried about not having enough body heat.

It was odd, seeing all of them. None of them looked related at all. They were so opposite of the Cains, it was jarring. They had different builds, different hair colors, facial structures, eye colors; it was opposite what she had become accustomed too. The Cains had a certain 'look' that they all fit in one way or another. There wasn't any way that these werewolves could be considered under the same look unless it was 'gorgeous' but some were more so than others.

"You have a story but where is the proof?"

"Proof?"

"Proof that what you're saying is true and not some sort of trap."

Derek sighed. "What do you want me to do? Pull out a body part? You have a necromancer on hand – use her to see if she can find Sean behind the veil."

"Isn't she one," the younger blond werewolf from the airport asked, nodding at Chloe.

"She's not summoning anything," Derek growled, stepping in front of her, partially blocking her view from the rest of them.

One of the werewolves snorted.

"Besides, even if she _did_, you wouldn't believe her. She'd just back up my story and you're in no hurry to believe that I'm actually telling you the truth."

Elena gave a small smile to the blond with the drawl.

Chloe nudged Derek and he turned around. She mouthed a question at him but he shook his head. She frowned. Derek shook his head and she rolled her eyes.

She stepped aside and brushed his hand away that was trying to grab her.

"He's not telling you the entire story. Did you know that we've received an offer to go against the Pack? To make sure that the _new_ one stays on top of what is happening so what happens to us will never happen again?"

The small smile on Elena's face vanished.

"They're going to find out. Jaime is going to tell them," she replied to him. Derek tried to grab her arm again but this time he was successful. She winced at the pain of her arm as this was definitely not something she could find a way to escape. "Let go," she hissed.

The brown haired werewolf stepped forward to break the two up but Derek put himself in between them. Chloe tried to pull his fingers away but they remained like iron shackles. She was going to have another bruise to add to her collection.

"Derek, let me _go_," she whispered, hoping that perhaps she could snap him out of whatever he was in that was making him act this way. He didn't.

"You need to let her go," Elena said, her voice was firm. Derek looked at her but he didn't comply.

Elena repeated herself but Derek didn't move.

Chloe's head started to ache. Was it from all of the stress? The cold? She tried to focus on what was going on – _why was Derek acting this way_?

It came to her suddenly. He didn't want to turn over the information about the Cains teaming up with Malcolm to go against the Pack. He was hurting _her_ because he was protecting the _Cains_. She took a deep shuddering breath and felt bile rise in her gorge. She forced it back down but her headache intensified.

She heard a car pull up and doors slam.

"Stop, everyone stop," Jaime's voice rang out. She saw her and the man from the diner run from the car and towards them.

A rustle in the bushes next to them drew her attention next. It was just a small bird, looking for food in the middle of winter. This bird didn't need food. It was missing a wing, its tail and was hobbling about on one leg. It had a garbled tweet that sounded otherworldly.

Chloe next saw a sword and she fell backwards, Derek's grip tightening on her arm.

"Is that a dead bird," she heard someone ask.

"Eve, can you take care of it?"

She didn't hear an answer. She saw a tall woman with waist length hair approach the bird and suddenly it was lying back on the ground, dead as it was not five minutes before.

Derek's grip loosened and she managed to twist away, making it to the grass to throw up. She cradled her head in her hands. It ached. It never hurt like this before after the accidentally or purposely summoned anything. She hadn't even felt the pulls. This time it was all pain and aches.

"Chloe? Are you alright?" She turned around and saw Jaime walking towards her.

"What the hell just happened," the young blond, Chloe noted that he had an Australian accent, werewolf asked.

"Something that we can hopefully stop," the man Jaime came with replied. He was walking towards her too, slightly behind Jaime.

She saw the sword again and she knew she was going crazy. Swords didn't glow blue. If it was really there then surely everyone else would be reacting to seeing a _glowing_ sword.

"It's going to be alright," Jaime said in a soothing tone. What had happened while they were separated to cause this concern, this change in attitude? "Jeremy and I are going to take care of you, okay?"

Chloe now noticed that she was having trouble standing on her feet. The earth lurched forward and back. She stumbled backwards, somehow ending up on the bench portion of a table. Her head hurt so _much_.

It seemed like a poor time to have her first migraine.

"Elena, Jaime and I would like to take her back to Stonehaven, now," Jeremy said, looking back.

She looked at the scene for a moment before conceding.

"I'm going with her," Derek said. Chloe noticed that he wasn't standing by himself anymore. He was being restrained by the older male werewolves.

"Like hell you are," the southern blond drawled. "You're coming with us and you're going to tell us the rest of the story you conveniently left out of the picture."

Derek struggled. Chloe squinted, trying to make sure that she was seeing things properly. He was easily much larger than the other two but it stood to reason that even with the size difference, two experienced versus one still learning would still lean towards the smaller werewolves.

Jaime and Jeremy each took one of Chloe's arms and began walking her around the edge of the pavilion, avoiding the rest of the crowd. Chloe saw Derek struggling still.

"I need to go with her. I know how to keep her calm," he yelled, his voice echoing.

Elena shook her head.

"Reese, get the zip-ties out of the back," Elena said. The Australian jogged over to the suburban. Chloe noticed that on closer inspection they had New York plates.

"Syracuse," she muttered.

"What was that," Jeremy asked.

"You drove down from Syracuse?"

"Why do you think that," Jeremy asked. They picked up their pace. They were almost to the car.

"Because Derek grew up in New York but never in Syracuse because that is where the Pack was, and they'd kill him because he was a mutt," Chloe breathed heavily. "We … we had to avoid that town when we tried to escape."

Chloe looked behind her. Reese had come back with the zip-ties and they were binding his hands behind his back.

"What are they doing, what are they doing," she frantically cried. "This was all a mistake; we never should have come to you."

Eve was leaning against the car. The glowing sword was stowed behind her back. Chloe dug her heels into the ground.

"Who is she? Why does she have a sword? Where … where did the bird go? I have to release it. You can't leave things unsettled like that," she shook her head. She felt as though she was going crazy. The pain was only intensifying. She didn't know that she _could_ suffer this much pain.

"She's … a friend of mine," Jaime said softly. "She's not going to hurt you. She's just here because she couldn't find me earlier. That's all."

"Why …" Chloe started but stopped. She tried to focus on what she was trying to say but the thoughts were all going by too quickly to vocalize them. Was this why she was in so much agony?

"Shit, Reese, did you grab the tranqs," someone asked.

"No," he yelled back. "Is there – shit!"

"Elena!" Another voice, another shout.

"Choke him out," she barked. "Clay, grab him, Nick try to keep him steady so he doesn't take everyone down."

Chloe watched as the older blond wrapped his left arm around Derek's neck. Nick stayed close, leaning his body into Derek's, trying to keep him still. It was a herculean task. Chloe could see that Derek had started to Change.

More bile rose in her throat as she watched the scene fold out in front of her. She knew that Changes were bad enough, but this was barbaric.

"Chloe, we're going to get into the car and they will be behind us as soon as they are able to get him into their vehicle," Jeremy said. He gently started leading the way, the final few footsteps to the car.

"No," Chloe whimpered. "I … No," she groaned. She felt her feet go out from under her, she heard Derek's half cry, half snarl as he dealt with the Change and also someone _choking_ him.

"She's doing it," Eve warned. "Tell them, tell them that …" she paused, tilting her head.

"Can you stop it," Jaime asked.

She shook her head. "I don't have orders … although I imagine I'll be receiving some soon," she sighed.

"Elena, tell them to back off," Jaime yelled.

"Chloe! What are you doing – I … shit!"

Chloe looked up. Liz had arrived and was torn from being angry and panicked. Without waiting an answer, she grabbed some loose gravel and started throwing it at Clay and Nick.

It was all too much. Everyone was shouting, or almost everyone. Elena was the only one who was completely silent. She was watching everything. Chloe followed her eye line to Derek, Clay, and Nick. Derek's Change had stopped. The stress and the diminished oxygen must have cancelled each other out as he wasn't progressing any further. His moments were slower now. Clay's arm was firmly wrapped around his neck, despite Liz's efforts to dislodge him.

They weren't going to merely choke him out. She saw the look on Clay's face.

He was going to kill him. He may claim it was an 'accident' but Chloe would know that it wasn't. The rest of the Pack wouldn't mind, Derek was a mutt and Clay was simply following orders. Things often became out of hand in the midst of chaos. He would simply forget to let go or perhaps squeeze too hard and crush his windpipe.

No one would care. No one would pay. He'd be buried in an unmarked grave and she would follow suit.

Not today.

"Liz, get him off!" Chloe screamed. Her scream made it feel like her head split open but she knew that time was running out for both of them. She took Jeremy and Jaime by surprise and slipped their grip. She stumbled over to Derek. Liz had managed to knock Nick loose with a tree branch.

"Let him go," Chloe yelled. A snarl answered behind her. She turned around and a dead dog was running toward her, teeth bared.

Clay narrowed his eyes, glaring at her. He squeezed harder and Derek's face purpled.

The dog ran past her and ran to Clay, jumping, trying to bite him.

"Clay, let him go," Elena called, breaking her silence.

He instantly let him go and jumped backwards, away from the snarling dog.

Derek crumpled to the ground. Chloe managed at the last second to keep his head from making contact with the cold concrete.

"Derek, wake up, wake up," she said. His Change receded. He was human now, although his shirt and pants were now ripped in various places.

"Chloe, we need to go," Jaime said softly. She managed to get a few steps behind her before the dog and Liz jumped between them.

"We're not going anywhere with _you_," Chloe snarled. Her head ached. If she had anything left in her stomach, she would have vomited it up. The queasiness and pain and everything, it was all too much. "You said they would hear us out, and instead they're going to kill us. No. If we wanted that, we would have stayed where we were."

"And where was that," Eve asked. She didn't pay any attention to the snarling dog or Liz as she approached Chloe. A sword probably helped her confidence levels in that regard.

"…somewhere else. Look, all we wanted to _do_ was tell you that Sean Nast was _dead_ and that we found his _body_ where the _Nasts_ kept us hidden. That's all we wanted to do. We didn't want to get caught up in an uprising against the Pack or have you all murder us out in the woods."

Eve searched her face.

"Do you know what I am?"

Chloe looked at her. "A person? Everyone is looking at you, so I'm assuming that you're … alive."

Eve shook her head. "A ghost, you could say. I just have … friends in higher places."

Derek groaned and Chloe turned her attention back to him. His face was returning to a normal color.

"What is this about an uprising? Derek failed to mention that before," Elena asked.

"Why should we tell you anything? You just _tried to kill us_."

Elena shook her head. "Did you hear me give a kill order? Knocking someone unconscious is hardly the same as killing someone. No one kills anyone without my express permission."

"Jaime, I'm going to check on a few things. If what she says is true, Kristof will know about it," Eve said as she disappeared.

Was Eve an unlikely ally? Would they wait to see what she found before taking action against them?

Chloe looked at Jaime and then the dog that was between them.

"Do you believe me now? Do you believe me about the experiments," she half shouted, half cried. "We're not lying, we're not lying."

"I think we all believe that there are larger things at play here," Elena chimed in. She looked over at Jeremy and mouthed something. He nodded in response. "Chloe, release the dog. We're not going to hurt you – either of you. Jeremy, can you check on Derek? Jeremy is our doctor, Chloe," Elena said calmly. "He'll be able to evaluate him if you let him."

Chloe hesitated but maybe if she let the dog go, she'd have some reprieve. It sometimes happened back at Badger Lake. She let the dog go and heard its body hit the concrete.

"Can … can someone bury it?"

"Reese," Elena volunteered. Reese walked over to the dog, trying and failing to keep his face blank. The stench didn't hit Chloe until then. It was foul. He grabbed it and headed back into the woods.

Jeremy was by her now. He had moved so quietly and softly that she didn't even notice. Or perhaps she was too distracted by the stench. He gave Derek a quick once over – checking his pulse, his pupils, listening to his heart and breathing.

"He's fine. He'll take wake up soon, I'm sure of it," he smiled.

Chloe looked at him. He looked somewhat like Malcolm but only in very fleeting ways. His demeanor was completely opposite. How could he be so calm when he had Malcolm was a father? Was this even the correct Jeremy? Was there another Jeremy waiting at Stonehaven?

"You … you all can leave. Just leave our bag. We'll be fine," Chloe sputtered out. "We'll disappear. You'll never hear from us again. You know everything now. Or … yeah. Eve will know the rest. Our story checks out. You don't need us. We just wanted to give you the information and be on our way. That's all. We just didn't want you to think we were involved and hunt … hunt him down."

"What about an uprising? We can't exactly ignore that."

"It's nothing, I'm sure. Just a small group. Less than the amount you have here today. It was probably all just bravado, trying to make us think that we had to join them or else."

"Do you know any names?"

Chloe bit her lip. Derek had wanted to protect the Cains. Should she follow in his footsteps? Or would they kill him because he was a Cain? Because of what his biological father did? Did they even remember killing him?

Derek groaned and turned on his side. Chloe was able to see his neck clearly now. It was going to be heavily bruised in a few hours.

"One name," he coughed. "We know one name." He paused to cough again, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"Care to share," Nick asked, stepping closer to Elena and Clay.

Derek sat up slowly, looking at the three of them together. He then turned and looked at Jaime and Jeremy. Sean had talked some about the Pack but he had specifically mentioned their names. Derek knew that if Sean was going so far as to freely give them names, it was important for him to remember them.

"No," he hoarsely replied. Nick frowned. "Right now that is our leverage until Eve returns. Once she does come back and confirm Sean's death, we'll give you the name on the condition that you let us go and don't track us down."

"Listen mutt, I don't know who you have been talking to but this isn't how things work," Clay growled. "You don't come to the Pack and lay out things on _your_ terms."

Derek stretched his neck, meeting his eyes and not backing down.

"You need this information. Without it … well, if this was any indication, you're going to be in big trouble."

"That's enough," Elena interrupted. "Jaime, the second Eve lets you know how true their story is, you let us know."

Jaime nodded.

"Now until then, we have to decide what to do with you two."

Derek shrugged. He moved his bound hands around, finding Chloe's. She scooted herself closer and let herself rest her head on his back.

It all hurt so much.

"I would like someone to grab the bag that we brought a cup, and some water. Chloe … she needs to take something. Unless you want to deal with more dead dogs"

"No thanks," Reese muttered, rejoining the group. Chloe couldn't see that he had any sort of tools with him for digging. Did he Change for that? Or was there a cache of tools waiting in the woods for them?

"Tell Derek that you need to get out of here. You need to go to town or somewhere else," Liz said.

Chloe relayed the message. Jaime listened as well.

"Better yet, you can simply drop us off where you found us and keep an eye on us there," Derek suggested.

Chloe closed her eyes. It would be easy to simply give into the exhaustion. She had to stay awake though. She wouldn't be of any use to Derek if she couldn't move on her own account.

"Seriously, Chloe, you need to get out of here _now_. I don't care where you go but it isn't safe here anymore," Liz said again.

"Derek … Derek, Liz said we have to go. It isn't safe here."

Derek looked back at her and frowned.

"You know what – just give me the keys. We'll go one way, you can go the other. We have to leave _now_."

"Now," Elena repeated.

"Yes, now. Liz … Chloe's ghost friend, she said things aren't safe here and she's never led us astray. We are leaving."

Derek stood up. Chloe tried to stand on her own but had to heavily lean on him.

"Elena," Jaime interrupted. She had turned her head, looking at Liz, listening for something. "They're right; we do need to get out of here. Something with the summoning went wrong and we need to get her out of here now."

Elena frowned. Clearly she didn't like having the decision made for her.

"Fine, Jeremy, Jaime, you two will take Chloe in your car. You'll follow us."

"Where?"

"Somewhere more secure," Nick answered.

"We need to grab that bag," Jaime chimed in again. "And …" she looked over at Jeremy. "We'll have Derek in the car too."

Elena raised an eyebrow. This must be abnormal behavior for Jaime.

"He helps keep her calm which is what we all need right now. He's also still bound up so he's not going to be able to do anything."

Elena surveyed them. Her face was a mixture of anger and disgust.

"Alright," she said slowly, working her jaw as though it refused to let the words come out. "You'll be the lead car then. If anything, _anything_, happens, stop and we'll put all of this to an end."


	4. Testing Boundaries

**A/N:** It is here! Apologies for being late but in better news, I can now type almost normally! I'm not sure if I'll keep my 2 week schedule as this has put me a bit behind but ... we will see. I've also been using a lot of my free time the past few days reading Kelley's latest book, _Visions_. If you haven't been reading her _Cainsville_ series, please give it a shot! I have only a hundred pages or two left in _Visions_ and I have a strong suspicion that once I'm done with it, I'm going to immediately start re-reading it. It's that good.

I can't remember if I put it in the last chapter or not but, in case I didn't, I now have a tumblr! You can find various DP/WotO/Bitten tidbits there.

And as always - first ten reviewers receive a drabble of their choice! Also guests, please leave a name so that I can call you something a bit more personable than 'guest' in Tales. Thanks! :)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the _Otherworld_ universe by Kelley Armstrong.

* * *

Chapter 4: Testing Boundaries

Chloe didn't remember much of the drive. She vaguely recalled getting into the car and Derek awkwardly trying to find some way to get comfortable with his hands bound behind his back.

She mostly remembered darkness and the cold.

She woke up and felt the restraints on her arms and legs. She was bound to the bed. She quickly scanned the room. She was alone although probably not for long. She could hear voices floating from somewhere down the hall. Was she on a different level than them?

Them – the _Pack_.

The meeting at the pavilion came rushing back to her. She tried not to panic. She had to figure out a way to get these restraints off and find Derek. Once she managed that, they would form a plan to get out of here. She was sure that the restraints were not part of the agreement for them to come to Stonehaven.

What if … she shook off the thought. She simply had to find Derek. They would keep him alive until they found out about Malcolm. There wouldn't be any real guarantee after they found out about it, especially once they discovered who was working with Malcolm.

Unless … Jaime told them. She knew what their plans were, although in less detail than they did. She could have easily told them while she was knocked out. Derek could be buried somewhere in the yard and she could be restrained until they found a Cabal that matched their finder's fee.

"Liz," she hissed through clenched teeth. If the Pack were anything like Derek, they would have a ridiculous hearing range. She had to be as quiet as possible. She hoped that Liz was nearby and that she wouldn't have to try summoning her. She repeated herself and Liz popped through the door.

"You want to untie me?"

Liz nodded and happily set to concentrating on the restraints. There were perks of having a friend on the other side, well, a dead half-demon friend at least.

Liz slowly and methodically worked on the restraints, cursing when her attention lapsed and her hand went _through_ Chloe instead. That was something Hollywood had managed to get wrong. It never felt cold when she accidentally went through part of a spirit. The best way to describe it would be as a very mild tingle, if even that. She wasn't sure if she felt that because it was there or because her brain expected her to feel _something_.

Liz cheered when she managed to slide the last clasp off and Chloe grinned.

"You're a life saver, do you know that?"

"I'm going to print up some business cards that say that," Liz grinned. That was something Chloe had missed about Liz. It didn't matter what their circumstances were, she always looked on the bright side, and they would get through this because that was simply what they did. She nearly pulled a muscle in her side when Liz told her how she picked on Derek some the first time the Cains had taken him. She must have laughed five minutes at her 'girls rule ' bit.

It was good having her back. It felt _right_ having Liz by her side.

"There wouldn't be any chance that you managed to sneak around earlier?"

Liz snickered. "You mean without Jaime seeing me?"

"Naturally."

"Well, there is good news and bad news. The good news, you're okay, Derek's okay, and they don't have any real plan going on right now. They're still waiting on Eve to pop back and talk to Jaime about Sean. The bad news … well, this house is creepy. I mean, seriously creepy. And I'm a ghost … a half demon ghost," she added after a pause. "And I should _definitely_ know the levels of creepiness and this house wins."

"Is Derek just in another room? Is he alright?"

"That's … a bit more bad news, I'm afraid." Her grin had slipped and Chloe mentally prepared herself for whatever dreadful news that was bound to come next. "Derek is alright and we can get to him easily enough but getting him out … that is going to be a bit of a bigger issue."

"He's under guard?"

"No, not even that."

"So what is the holdup then?"

"He's in a _cage_, Chloe."

Chloe stopped rubbing her wrists. They had heard stories, of course, through the grapevine. They had never dealt directly with the Pack. Generally information would filter in through Derek's trainer or Tori's trainers that also had dealings with Sean's sister Savannah. Apparently she spent several summers at Stonehaven and would still occasionally drop by to visit. Chloe had chalked the cage idea up to something being exaggerated or as some sort of scare tactic to keep the mutts inline. She never really gave it enough consideration that it may actually be real.

"Chloe?"

"Yes," Chloe looked up at Liz. "I … well, you've seen the layout of the place. Where is the cage?"

"It's in the basement."

"Of course," Chloe muttered darkly.

"I didn't see any other ghosts there," Liz said hopefully.

"That doesn't mean there aren't any residuals. And if there is a cage there … well, I can't imagine they let anyone walk out of it on their own will."

"So what is the plan boss?"

"We have to get Derek out of the cage. Or at least we need to know how to get him out of there quickly. If we hang tight, it'll lend support to the idea of us telling the truth about Sean. If we run, it's just going to look like we're lying or involved in some plot against them and they wouldn't hesitate to kill us."

"I can go down there by myself again. I can probably scrape up some pen and paper too; let Derek know that you're alright and that we're working on something."

"I'd appreciate it. Just … be careful," Chloe said meekly. She watched Liz disappear through the door and sighed. She got off the bed and walked over to the window. The grass was already green here. Somehow they must have had a less severe winter than they did further south or they had professional groundskeepers.

It was a waiting game. Everything was out of their hands right now.

The truth would come out. They would see that their story held up. At this point she didn't care if the Pack did anything. If they just shoved them out of the door with a stern reminder of not to darken their doorstep again, unceremoniously gave them one way tickets to Europe, or _anything_ she'd welcome it.

They just had to make it that far.

* * *

A short time later a knock sounded at the door. Chloe quickly looked back at the bed. There wasn't time to get back in it and the restraints. Perhaps it might do some good for them to wonder how she managed to escape.

"Chloe? Are you awake?"

Chloe rolled her eyes, as if they hadn't been aware of it before.

"Yes," she answered. She was still standing by the window.

"I … oh," Jaime said, taken aback when she saw that the bed was empty.

"Has Eve returned?"

"No, I'm afraid not. Well, she has but she didn't quite have all of the answers she was looking for."

"I don't understand. Was she not able to find him?"

"Well," Jaime said, sitting on the bed. "I'm not sure if you noticed or not but Eve isn't exactly your typical ghost."

"You mean she wasn't a sword aficionado in real life?"

"I … I can't say I've ever asked that question, but no, the sword is something that belongs on the other side. She's … well, she's an agent of the fates, you could say."

"Fates," Chloe repeated.

"Correct. She was able to pull some strings and she confirmed that the body you found near Badger Lake was Sean's. However his … whatever you want to call it, it wasn't on the other side."

Chloe shrugged.

"Eve suspects that someone might have taken it," Jaime said slowly.

"_Or_ perhaps he's in a nasty place where they don't keep up to date rosters?"

Jaime frowned at that remark. "That … you don't know much about that side, so I'm going to let that slide just this once. Don't ever say anything like that again though – not ever. Things are bit less black and white on the other side. And even with that, Sean wasn't like that at all."

"Compared to here? Where you're trying to do the right thing and end up having your life threatened at the airport?"

"That is different, had Elena known you were coming with information –"

"But we _couldn't_. That is the whole point of all of this," she said exasperated. "All of this happened because of some … whatever of the Pack refusing to help us, even years ago."

"Now about that," Jaime started again, "until yesterday, the Pack didn't know about Derek or any of this. The first time I heard of it was when you told me, back at that place. You can't hold it against them that they didn't know about you."

"But isn't the whole point of the Council and the Pack is to make sure that things like _this_ doesn't happen?"

"It's … well, we can get into this at a later point. Elena and Jeremy would need to be here for that to answer any questions you might have."

"But they believe us, right? They believe us and now they're going to let us go, alive?"

Jaime looked down at her hands.

"What we would like to do is have you two stay here for a while. Help us figure out what happened with Sean, take us to Badger Lake at some point to see the others, we can help train you, help manage your abilities."

Chloe turned and looked out the window. She stared off into the distance, not looking at any one particular thing.

"And how … how would we help you with Sean?"

"I don't know. Once Eve comes back, we'll have more information. Maybe you could help, maybe you can't. I can reach out and see if you have any extended family that the researchers missed or contact the ones that you have in the file. We can track someone down and see what particular areas you need to be wary of."

Chloe turned back around and looked at her.

"So we offer our help, if needed, and I receive training? What about Derek? I know about their no mutts policy."

"Derek can get help too. If there is anyone on this planet that would be able to help him, it would be the members of the Pack. They have knowledge and resources that go back centuries. They can help him figure out what exactly sets him apart from … them."

Liz started to pop her head through but Chloe started to shake her head. Jaime watched her and started to turn around but Chloe quickly started stretching her neck, hoping that Jaime wouldn't think anything of it.

"And we wouldn't be under any obligation to stay? Any obligation to do what we don't want to," she quickly replied. The quicker she could get Jaime's attention back on her the better.

"Once we are done dealing with Sean's death, I imagine you will be free to leave at any point. I can't promise you the last one. Sometimes we all have to do terrible things for the greater good."

Chloe watched Jaime. She had heard this speech before.

* * *

Liz popped back in once Jaime was gone.

"Oops," she suggested meekly.

"You didn't … feel her?"

"I probably did. I'm just used to yours so I probably didn't even notice it. The glow was weaker though, dimmer than yours."

Chloe sat back on the bed.

"How was Derek?"

"How do you think? He was mad as hell," Liz snorted. "I believe he started talking about how this violates the Geneva Convention and some other stuff. But he's alright, physically, that is. They haven't beat up on him or anything since he was put in there."

"Put in there?"

"You don't think he went in there willingly, did you?"

"No, I suppose not," Chloe replied. "He's not beat up too badly, is he?"

"It didn't look like it. His neck is just nasty though," Liz shuddered.

"Liz … were you able to get a look at Eve when she dropped by earlier?"

"Yes and no," Liz admitted slowly. "I … I felt her, well, that sword at least, before I actually saw her come through. That thing is no joke. Did you notice that it glows? I mean, what is up with that? That's something that you'd think only happen in movies or T.V. or something. But once I felt that, I got out of there and hung out with Derek in the basement."

"Oh yeah?"

"I don't think he appreciated me sending dust bunnies his way."

Chloe shook her head. Sometimes she could pretend that Liz was alive, that she was with them, that she was the same age as them. Other times, like this, reminded her that she died so many years ago and was stuck at that age. Chloe wasn't envious of eternally being sixteen.

"I guess we wait now, or wait to see what happens next," Chloe said gradually, weighing the words on her tongue before they rolled out. "Jaime seems to think we can escape with our necks intact, so we might just have to play along and see what happens."

"Don't you think it's weird though?"

"Hmm?"

"You find Sean's body, buried in the woods that you frequently go in, but Eve can't find Sean on the other side?"

"I imagine it's a big place. Is it really as simple as just … looking someone up in a phonebook or something?"

"If I were asked by someone with a sword like that, I'd tell them whatever they wanted."

"What is it about the sword that you don't like?"

"It's … I don't know," Liz said, slumping her shoulders. "It just reeks of power. Like you have your glow? Its glow is kind of the same thing, only … its power, but it's also something much larger, bigger."

"Jaime did say that Eve was some sort of agent of the fates."

"I'd believe it," Liz replied. "That sword means some serious business. _I_ could really benefit from having something like that to carry around."

"You want a sword?"

"Um, hello? Remember? It _glows_. It doesn't necessarily _have_ to be a sword. I'd be fine with a bow. Or an axe. A pair of daggers might be handy too."

Chloe snickered.

* * *

The next time someone was at the door, it was Jaime, asking if she felt like joining them for dinner downstairs.

She went along with it, stopping Jaime right before they entered the dining room.

"Is Derek going to be in there?"

Jaime shook her head. Chloe sighed and crossed her arms.

"Is he at least going to be fed?"

"Of course, it's just that it isn't safe for him to be out right now."

"What you really mean is that Elena doesn't want him out and that's the party line."

"I'd be careful of what you say. Words travel fast in this house. You don't question the Alpha unless you are prepared to face the consequences," she warned and then she entered the dining room. Voices filtered through the closing door. Chloe stood there, weighing her options.

"Liz?"

Liz materialized with a mischievous grin.

"How well is your aim?"

* * *

The table was rowdy. She had gotten used to the silent dinners with the Cains, where the only soundtrack was the scraping of forks and knives against plates. Here there were voices carrying from one end of the table to the other. Jaime and Jeremy were quiet, as was Clay. She noticed that he would occasionally look at her, sizing her up. It wasn't in any sort of sexual way; it was more of him evaluating the threat level she was currently at.

He was looking in the wrong place.

Liz did her best to start _something_ but Jaime kept too close an eye on her the entire time. It did lead to an awkward conversation when Liz was contemplating emptying a glass over Antonio's head. Antonio, who Chloe couldn't quite wrap her mind around the fact that he was Nick's _father_ and not brother, couldn't figure out why Jaime was staring at him and she had to come up with something, quickly. Chloe was surprised that Jaime did cover for her. It would have been easy to just tell the truth or banish Liz. Or perhaps things were a bit more complicated than that.

Chloe did her best to not speak and was successful in her attempts. She listened and learned. There were children – somewhere – but they were staying over at a friend's house for the weekend. That struck her as slightly odd but considering the circumstances, it didn't seem _too_ out of the ordinary. It also seemed to be a tally in the "we're going to murder you" box instead of the "we'll all wait and talk" box.

That was less reassuring.

"When can I see Derek?"

"Later," Elena shortly replied. No one else bothered to answer her after that. There were some rules or behaviors that Alphas commanded, or so Derek had been told. Eating first, being the first in the room, making decisions and no one second guessing them, orders that couldn't be obeyed – it sounded more like some sort of royal decree than something someone was elected too.

It seemed odd that even Jaime went along with the behaviors. It was possible that she picked it up since she had been with Jeremy for some time or she just humored it to keep the peace. Elena didn't strike Chloe as the type that handled rebellion very gracefully.

Liz did manage to make a few of the werewolves stumble by moving the rug some. At this point Chloe would take the small victories over no victories.

She felt a tingling on her skin as she was watching the last leave the room. She remained sitting there. She didn't want to interrupt their big murder planning session.

"Chloe?"

Chloe looked up to see that Jaime had come back.

"Come with us, we're all going to talk about some things and you need to be present." Jaime paused a moment. "Are you okay?"

"I … you don't feel it?"

"Feel it?"

"The tingling…someone is coming, aren't they? A ghost, right? You've been working on summoning a ghost and now they're coming."

"I don't know what you mean. The only spirit we're expecting is Eve but I don't know when she is going to be here."

"Soon. Can't you feel it?"

Jaime took a hesitant step towards her and then seemed to think against it. She took the step back and clung to the open door behind her.

Chloe tilted her head, it was stronger now.

"She's here," Chloe said, standing up and walking past Jaime. In the living room she saw the werewolves strewn about on sofas and chairs and standing in the middle was Eve with that glowing sword.

"Where can I get one of those?" Liz asked.

"You really don't want to know," Eve smirked. "There you are, Jaime," she grinned. The grin seemed genuine, as though Eve was glad to see her.

"Everyone, Eve is here, so I'm going to talk to her and then I'll report back to you once I have everything down," Jaime said. Eve followed, as did Chloe and Liz.

Eve turned around, "I don't recall you being on the list."

"I want to make sure that you found out the truth."

"And what purpose would I have to lie?"

"To finish terminating the unstable subjects," Chloe coolly replied.

"Enough – Chloe, you can stay if you let Eve finish and not interrupt. I'm sure she has other … places to go and need her attention."

* * *

Jaime paced in front of the fireplace. Chloe wasn't going to tell them what Eve had said. She would let Jaime tell them. They would believe her.

The werewolves were watching her. It seemed as though this was atypical behavior for Jaime. Jeremy seemed concerned. Jaime kept brushing him off.

"Everything that Chloe has told us so far is true," she said finally. "There is more," she gave a pointed look to Chloe. "Sean is dead, that is confirmed. He is no longer of this realm; however, he isn't where he is supposed to be in the afterlife either and no one seems to know that he wasn't part of this realm either. Eve is working on it but you can imagine she is pissed beyond belief at this point."

"How can that be?" Elena asked.

"I don't know. My instinct is that it involves dark magic, witch magic maybe. Sorcerer dark magic, that's a possibility too. Whoever wanted Sean's death to remain a secret went to great lengths to do so. They buried him in a discreet location, they have his soul somewhere else, and they have managed to find a look alike through some sort of means since, according to the Nasts, Sean hasn't missed a day of work. Kristof hasn't reported anything atypical about his behavior when he has his monthly check-ins with him … only, well, we all know now that that he wasn't watching Sean."

Chloe leaned back in her chair. It was nice to finally feel validated about all of this. They finally had proof that they weren't lying and that hopefully they would be sent on their way and never run into any of these people ever again.

"Are the Nasts looking into it?"

"That's the problem," Jaime said slowly. "Eve and Kristof have been at this for hours now. We need to get to the root of who planted the fake Sean and how they managed to do that. Kristof has been reaching out to older relatives of his but they haven't been the most cooperative. We might need to bring Lucas in but he can't breathe so much as of a hint about any of this to Benicio. This may be something that the Cortezes have orchestrated or one of the others or it could be something entirely else."

"Jaime, I appreciate you telling us this but that is a sorcerer problem. We're not going to involve ourselves in something that doesn't concern us or the Council. We have our own mutt uprising to deal with," Elena said.

"I think they're linked. It can't be by coincidence that he smelled werewolves at the gravesite."

Elena gave a pointed look over at Chloe.

"We need to visit the mutt." 

* * *

Chloe had always made it a point to avoid basements, even in Badger Lake where it was all new construction. Something about being underground gave her the creeps. She wasn't sure if she was generalizing being underground with corpses or her experiences at the Lyle House but they still bothered her. She had tried getting past it but every time she went a few steps below the surface of the earth, she had a quick change of heart.

This was one scenario they had talked about but never pressed. Derek had always argued that if it reached this point that she shouldn't try to force herself into a situation where she was going to be uncomfortable. He would find a way to get out of the basement or whatever it was and rejoin her later. He had always talked about various plans they needed to have for different scenarios. Chloe had called him paranoid, they all had. Now she wished they had developed some sort of coping strategy for this. She wasn't going to let them see that being underground bothered her. It would give them a clue about a potential weakness for them to exploit. They could keep Derek underground or even put her in a different cage. She was sure that they had several.

Elena led the way, walking down the stairs as causal as if she was merely going to check on the water heater or look for something packed away. The Pack must make it a habit of keeping mutts locked away in order for them to come across as flippant about it.

Chloe was near the rear of the group – she refused in her head to refer herself as _part_ of the Pack, even in a general grouping – and she ran through all of the coping strategies in her head. Breathing, holding the necklace, _happy thoughts_ as lame as it was, they seemed to help the most. Block out the bad with the good. It was an elementary concept but it seemed to work most effectively out of all of them.

She was halfway down the steps when she first caught a glimpse of the cage. Its steel bars, the heavy laden door. Derek had been sitting in the back corner but he quickly stood up, his eyes meeting hers. She knew what he was thinking. She knew that he wanted to yell at her, berate her about how _stupid_ she was for coming down here, how she wasn't going to prove anything by coming down here so _get upstairs already damn it_.

She focused on Derek. If she could retain her focus, she could ignore the rest of them. She knew there would be residuals down here. It was inevitable. They had a _cage_ for _people_ for fuck's sake. It'd be noteworthy if there _wasn't_ any.

Elena was watching Derek, her arms crossed. Clay was next to her. He had a blank expression on his face. They muttered something to each other and Clay shook his head. Chloe couldn't make it out, being this far back. She started to wonder, but she went back to looking at Derek. That was where she needed to focus on. The rest of these people were secondary.

"Go back upstairs," Derek mouthed but Chloe shook her head no. He frowned but then his attention went to Elena. "Is it interrogation time?"

"You said you smelled werewolves at the grave site. We need names," Clay said.

"Can't help you with that," Derek lied. "I didn't recognize them. I know enough that they smelled like, well, werewolves, but I can't give you names because I don't know them. Can't say I really know any. Interestingly enough, Sean kept promising to introduce me to you all but it always seemed as you all had better things to do."

"Derek," Jaime interrupted, stepping closer but still behind Elena and Clay. "I know that you know other werewolves."

"Yes, but it wasn't until we ran into them."

"Derek," Jaime said sternly. "Half-truths do not go over well here."

Derek turned around in the cell. When he turned back around, Chloe could see that he had rearranged his face. Instead of being defiant, he now looked at least a little guilty.

"Fine, yes, _years_ ago I ran into other werewolves. I can't say it was a pleasant occasion. I had a set that tried to kill me and another kidnap me."

"Cut the shit," Clay hissed, reaching through the bars and jerking Derek against them. A loud clang sounded in the basement and Chloe tried to run towards him. A set of hands stopped her, gripping her shoulders firmly.

"You both reek of Cains. You think we're stupid? We just want some information and the longer you try to be smart and play games, well, the less and less of you are going to be leaving here."

"Are you sure you're not smelling that because _I'm_ a Cain?"

Clay gave him another jerk and Derek's head this time came into contact with the bars. Chloe winced.

Clay looked back at Elena. "We know it's the Cains. We just go back using Jaime's directions and teach them a lesson. We're wasting time trying to talk."

Elena tilted her hand and looked at him. "We'll do that," she said. "Antonio, Reese, grab Noah too, he could benefit from seeing how we handle mutts."

Derek started to protest but Clay gave him another jerk. Derek was grimacing.

Antonio and Reese headed back upstairs, their footsteps light and jaunty. This was going to be _fun_ for them, her stomach sank. She wasn't overtly fond of the Cains but they didn't deserve to be maimed to serve as a lesson to other mutts and surely not as an experiment for a younger werewolf either.

Chloe knew that she had to do something. She had to do _something_ to stop them from going there.

"It isn't just Cains," she said. She saw that she had every one's attention, including Derek's. "There is one that isn't. He's the leader of them all. He promised to bring down the Pack. He is going to make you all pay for your negligence, for letting people experiment on werewolves and doing nothing. He's going to make sure that you all pay for bringing them back into the supernatural community when the rest tried to make sure you went extinct," Chloe's voice had a shrill tone to it. She was losing focus, trying to remember Malcolm's words. She started seeing flickers of other werewolves in the cage.

"Do you have a name," Jeremy asked softly.

"Jaime knows that I'm not lying. I don't know why you're not just getting all of this from her. Well, I suppose we _do_ know more since we were there longer and have a better idea of what their end game is."

"A name," Elena said.

"Malcolm Danvers."

Jeremy studied Chloe's face carefully. He made her repeat it. He turned to Jaime who looked on the verge of tears, nodding softly.

Jeremy looked at Elena, his face hard and his cheek twitched, Chloe saw. Why was he reacting this way? She knew that Malcolm was his father and that his father, well, didn't exactly have the highest opinion of his son but surely he couldn't be surprised by this.

"Elena, we can please talk upstairs," he said softly. They both left, and Jaime hurried after them. Chloe was sure that it wasn't going to be a calm meeting of the minds by the way Jeremy was acting. Nick and Clay followed Jaime, leaving Chloe alone with Derek in the basement.


	5. Vivid Memories

**A/N: **This is Oaths Sworn: 5! As always - first ten reviewers receive a drabble of their choice! You'll note that this is a shorter chapter - well, the pace is picking up, so it'll be shorter chapters for a while (I think). I'm currently taking a break from writing (but I have more chapters to put up, so don't worry!) since I need specifics of where everyone is at at 13 ... which I am almost at! I just started _Waking the Witch_ (POV is a witch-sorcerer hybrid for you Tori fans!) so I'm hoping to be back at writing in the next week or so? I also need to re-read DR a bit since I haven't read those as much. I can now say Irving Nast is the Charlie Brown of the _Otherworld_ universe. Dude at least tries? Anyway - so there is that. Also a reminder about the **Atoning** forum we have over in the forum section!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the _Otherworld _universe by Kelley Armstrong.

* * *

**Chapter 5: Vivid Memories**

Chloe waited until she heard the last set of footsteps leave the stairs before she rushed over to the cage. She desperately tried to open it but it wouldn't budge.

"Chloe, out,_ now_," Derek hissed. She ignored him. Liz looked around but couldn't find the keys.

Chloe tried to keep her focus on the task at hand. She knew that if she slipped up, she would see _things_ that she would greatly prefer not to. If she didn't, well, that seemed highly unlikely given that there was a _cage in the basement_, as if she needed another reason to avoid basements.

"Chloe," Derek yelled this time. It caught her off guard. Derek rarely yelled these days. It was hissed whispers, a stern tone, never yelling.

Perhaps if they had fought more, yelled more, it wouldn't have happened.

She slipped for just a fraction of a second. Her focus was shifted from the door to him, but in that sliver, everything wedged its way in.

She saw countless men, standing in the cage, around Derek, _in_ Derek, some were wolves, some were human, and some were something in-between, some were yelling, others quiet, resigned to their fate. She saw them all; they all had a different way to die. There were more than a handful of images from the ones upstairs, Clay in particular. She saw one that was either Antonio or Nick. She saw others though; she knew that they were older. The clothing was heavily dated.

It wasn't only men. There were women too. They were all in human form, assuming that they were even werewolves.

She saw all of this and fell back, landing hard against the floor.

Chloe must have cried out as the room became brighter when the door opened. A flurry of footsteps went down and a pair of hands grabbed her and pulled her back up the stairs.

* * *

None of the Pack talked to her when she was upstairs. She was stashed away in a room off to the side. She could hear voices were elevated. They weren't yelling but it wouldn't take much for it to reach that point.

She heard the same name being thrown around.

Malcolm.

She did her best to try to eavesdrop on the conversation. She had been able to piece together some of it. Jeremy was the son of Malcolm and wasn't aware that Malcolm was still alive. Had Malcolm faked his own death or had someone told him a lie? What purpose would that serve?

"Can you tell me what you saw down there?"

Chloe shifted her attention to Jaime. She was pacing, occasionally sticking her head out the door to eavesdrop better.

"What do you think happens when you put people in a cage?"

Jaime frowned. "I have my suspicions, but I've never seen anything down there."

"Well aren't I just a lucky girl," Chloe darkly muttered. There had been a time where she would have been hanging off of Jaime's every word, a perfectly apt student. Now she was filled with bitterness. "They're residuals, how can you _not_ see them? All of them?"

"They're not going to hurt either of you; you have my word on that. Derek is their concern, you're mine under the guidelines of the Interracial Council." Jaime stopped and stuck her head out further, frowning at her lack of supernatural hearing.

"Has Eve reported back with anything new? Did she confirm your worst fears?"

"Nothing new, no."

Chloe stood and walked over to her. "We are going to be able to leave, right?"

Jaime sighed. "You really don't know what you're in the middle of, do you?"

Chloe shrugged. She had paid attention to Derek and the Cains. She knew some things about werewolves but this was probably just political stuff. Boring. She was tired of political things and she was tired of being a pawn.

"We _are_ leaving, right? I don't even care about training. I just want to leave. Whatever imaginary deal or whatever Malcolm made, it's gone, cancelled, voided, whatever."

"If only it could be that simple," Elena's voice joined in.

Chloe took a step back. Elena towered over her and Jaime. Chloe told herself that she stepped back because she wanted to see her better but it was because Elena's presence demanded space. Chloe looked behind her, there was no one.

"We need more information."

"As long as Derek and I can leave on our own free will, you can have whatever you want," she offered.

Elena's eyes glittered for a moment. She thought she saw amusement in there.

"Listen, we've told you everything. Jaime was at the house just like we were. There was Malcolm, Keith and some others. I don't know what else they were going to plan or any specifics. They were just going to … dispose of you all."

Elena leaned against the doorway, her arms crossed. She looked casual, relaxed.

"Derek knows more. You need to get him to share that information."

Chloe's gut dropped. She knew that this was going to be a hard sell. So far he refused to divulge any information about the Cains to the Pack.

"There are other things to consider too – we have Sean's murder to deal with. We have confirmed that he _is_ dead but we have to make sure we catch those responsible. You two are our only witnesses to his gravesite."

"You want us to take you there?"

Elena shrugged. How was she remaining so casual, so aloof? Power and leverage, Chloe supposed, power gave her that ability as she had all of it and Chloe had none.

"Eventually, perhaps, but we need to know how soon they were planning on attacking."

"Soon."

Elena's face tensed, her air of aloofness gone.

"I swear that's all that was said, soon. Malcolm increased Derek's training –"

"His _what_?"

Chloe regretted letting that slip out. "You know, training, fighting, strategy, that kind of thing."

Elena's face was hard now. Clearly this was something that she should have kept to herself. She didn't need for them to think that Derek was any sort of threat to them. They didn't let threats live very long.

* * *

Chloe sat in her room. She had gone over the possibilities she had. They were limited but she needed to make sure that she didn't slip up again. She couldn't just let little facts like that slide out without getting something back in return.

It would be easier if she could write it down on notecards and arrange them but she didn't trust that they weren't somehow spying on her or going through her things.

She talked it over with Liz. They went back and forth for a while.

* * *

Jaime seemed timid around her now. She hadn't before, not even with the runes at the cabin. Perhaps she thought they were exaggerating or lying.

No, she was definitely looking at her differently since Chloe saw the residuals in the basement, residuals that Jaime allegedly didn't. Summoning ghosts were something that was supposed to be varied with different levels of powers. Seeing residuals? Chloe thought that was supposed to be an open and close case. All necromancers were supposed to see all residuals. There wasn't anything to summon. There wasn't any spirits to deal with. It was something that was etched into that place in the universe. It was supposed to be as simple as just _seeing_.

"I want to help you, you just have to let me," Jaime said.

"Look – I told the Alpha, I'm telling you, I just want to get Derek and get out of here."

"You and I both know that isn't an option for you. Eve has come back with some troubling news."

"Yes, Sean, I know about that."

"If only it were that simple."

* * *

She couldn't believe that Liz hadn't told her. This was something that Liz _should_ have told her the second she was summoned. This wasn't something minor. This was _big_. This was something that would ruin _everything_ that she had worked towards.

She wanted to do something but she couldn't. She was cooped up in this room while the werewolves argued about their next course of action. They seemed split between pursuing Sean's murder and going after Malcolm.

Did it really matter which one they chose? The looming threat was Malcolm. It was immediate, it was something that could happen any minute. Sean's murder – well, no one other than Chloe, Derek, the Pack, Jaime and Lauren knew that he was dead. The Nast Cabal would continue to function for another week or two without knowing. And now … now Lauren was dead too. Murdered, just like he was.

Jaime had told her the options. Really a _stranger_ told her. She had only known Jaime for a few days. Hardly the level of trust that would have warranted her knowing something like this about Chloe without her even knowing it. It felt like an invasion of privacy. It was, of a sort.

She had known she was different. She had known that she wasn't going to have the life she imagined when she was six, thirteen, sixteen or twenty. Each year her wishes lowered in response to her life's evolving complications.

The "deal" was simple. Help the Pack look into Sean's murder, provide any information about the Cains and Malcolm to them, and in return they would be free to go once Jaime deemed Chloe stable enough to handle things.

From the sounds of it, they would never leave Stonehaven. The Nasts certainly seemed certain that she would never be stable enough to leave Badger Lake. What sort of resources could Jaime offer that the Cabal couldn't?

It was eerily close to what they had agreed with the Cains: training for protection.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to tell Derek. It wasn't something that she could exactly argue against. It was that or lights out, permanently. Jaime hadn't said as much but she read between the lines.

Derek wasn't going to turn over on the Cains. She wanted him too. She wanted him to back when they were at the cabin. Back when Lauren was _alive_. None of this would have happened if Jaime hadn't pressed for them to leave that night. They would have waited longer, a few more days, maybe a week. It didn't have to go that way.

Chloe took in a deep breath. She had to remain calm. It was harder knowing now what was potentially at stake.

She pulled out her notebook and looked over her notes that she had scribbled half a year ago. Maybe there was some little detail in there that would help get things going. As of right now, the most they had was the gravesite and they weren't planning on any field trips soon.

She sat there, going over her notes. She went over the memories of that night in her head. It was vivid and a blur at the same time. Derek had seemed so _frantic_. She had never seen him like that before, not even during his first few Changes. He had always been calm, slow to action, except when there was a possibility of danger. He always wanted to bolt when that was the situation. He wanted everyone he cared about out of any potential harm's way, even if it was just a hoax.

She was stuck on one detail. Derek had said that he recognized the smells. He said that he recognized them as werewolves, but was there something more? Would he have been that frantic if it was just an unknown werewolf as opposed to someone who he had run across before?

* * *

Jaime and Elena would be handling their meetings. She wasn't sure what that meant. Derek had told her how the Pack worked – or how he was told it worked. The Alpha wasn't to be questioned, wasn't to be looked in the eye, wasn't to be spoken back too.

It was the essential meaning of an authoritative position.

She had started negotiating with Derek. Elena wasn't going to budge on letting him out of the cage. She did concede to supervised time outside it so that he could stretch his legs. It was a sort of modified house arrest, only it was less house and more of a prison cell that he occasionally had the pleasure of leaving. So really it was more akin to prison with fewer roommates.

She also managed to get access to the basement anytime she wanted. She only had to tell Jaime that when she went down and when she came back up. They didn't want her spending long spans of time downstairs, not that she particularly enjoyed going down there either but it was a test of sorts for her. A form of training that she could at least tell herself that she was engaging in.

Elena had been surprisingly compassionate and sympathetic to her situation. Maybe she understood what it was like to be constantly gawked at for something she didn't have any control over.

The first meeting went better than Chloe expected. She had managed to achieve these goals without having to concede anything on her side.

Her task lay ahead of her.

She had to tell Derek what was going on. He wasn't going to like it. She wasn't sure if she should tell him everything. She knew that if she did, he _would_ cooperate but he'd never be able to look at her the same way again. _And_ it was pure speculation and conjecture. Nothing one hundred percent solid proof that what Eve found was necessarily true or could become true.

Jaime was playing a waiting game based on it and Eve's recommendation that she stay nearby. Chloe wasn't sure exactly _what_ Eve said or did but Liz wasn't up for pursuing any sort of antagonizing efforts towards the group.

Chloe retold them the story of how Derek found the grave and his behavior afterwards. She never actually _saw_ it, so she couldn't answer any questions about symbols, powders, or amulets. It was her task to drag that out of Derek.

It wasn't going to be easy.

* * *

"Chloe, I thought I told you to not come down here."

Chloe ignored him. It was something that she wasn't quite used to doing, but she needed to so that she could focus.

Before she had focused on Derek to ignore the residuals, now she planned on doing the opposite. She wanted to make sure that the horror stories were true. She already believed them but having proof could prove useful, especially if she could pick out a werewolf or two from the collection of photographs Derek had in Badger Lake.

She sat down on the stairs and looked around. It was going to be a new exercise for her. Picking one residual and letting the others fade away. Typically there was only _one_ residual in a space because of the trauma it required. Well, she was sure that in Europe there were plenty of places that might have more than one since beheading was a time honored tradition over there or the battlefields wherever they may be.

Had Liam and Ramon passed through these doors? Surely they couldn't have killed _everyone_ they brought down for interrogation. How would the stories be told? What proof would there be?

Liam and Ramon hadn't been there, nor had any of the werewolves that Derek had studied. It was an arduous task, and Derek wasn't making it any easier by griping at her.

She would watch the residuals and then focus in on a specific person and watch what happened to him. Well, there were a few women thrown in there but she had a strong suspicion that she did _not_ want to see what happened next.

She tried looking for what she assumed Zach would look like, a bit taller than Derek, blond, a man with a permanent scowl like Derek's. She didn't see one that matched, not that she really could see clearly. The residuals sometimes blurred together, forming odd shapes, as if they were each trying to step over the others to make their the one that Chloe would see clearly. It was easier when she was focusing on them one by one instead of searching for one to focus on.

"Chloe, get out of here. You know that it's not good for you," Derek barked again.

Chloe ignored him, trying at her task at hand. She didn't dare suggest telling Derek what she was trying to do.

After five minutes, and a splitting headache, she gave up, for now. She would try again, later.

Derek remained quiet, looking around his cage, occasionally watching her. So far, the Pack had upheld their word, for the most part. Derek hadn't been tortured or killed. He was certainly bruised still, but considering what she saw … it was a victory, of sorts.

It would be up to her to make sure that he walked out.

* * *

She was wrong.

They _were_ going on a field trip.


	6. Unplanned Excursions

**A/N: **Apologies, apologies for deviating from my regular uploading! There were things I had to fix and they just took longer than expected (the whole ripple effect - change something minor in one chapter and then making sure that it matches up in the rest of the chapters, etc.). But surely you all will forgive me since I come bearing a new chapter. I am hoping to get back on my previous upload schedule but I just need to finish a few tweaks in other written chapters before continuing on. :) If you want updates when this is updated, you can always add me to your author alerts, add this story to your story alerts, or check me out over on tumblr!

As always - to the first ten reviewers, a drabble of your choice!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the _Otherworld_ universe by Kelley Armstrong.

* * *

**Chapter 6: Unplanned Excursions**

It was strange, being on the outskirts of Badger Lake. They had strived so hard to get away from this place, away from everything it entailed, and now they found themselves back there, searching in the woods for the cause of their departure.

There had been some debate between the members of the Pack. A few argued that Derek should remain behind in the car – they had flown as close as they could and then rented a set of SUVs – while Chloe searched. A few argued that Chloe wouldn't be much use since Sean's soul was currently MIA and wouldn't be able to raise the body.

Jaime had argued that Derek should search, not Chloe, before they had left Stonehaven. She had stayed behind. It was known amongst the group that she didn't particularly enjoy traversing around in the woods with no solid guarantee of a habitable hotel nearby. Chloe couldn't exactly blame her. The idea of willingly wandering the woods looking for a dumped body screamed 'not a good time'.

Jeremy had sided with Jaime and that seemed to be enough for Elena to elect the first course of action. It also meant that there was more risk involved. If Derek decided to make a break for it, Chloe doubted that they would be lenient with him again. Sean wouldn't be the only one that had an unmarked grave in the woods. Odds are she'd be joining him since she knew what Derek would want her to do if that ever happened. She tried to brush it off. It wasn't a pleasant thing to think about.

And so they were, slowly walking in the woods. Derek had his hands bound together and a Pack member on either side. She watched from a distance, following in the rear with Jeremy.

Derek had been leading them in the same direction for the past hour. They were pushing northwest. Part of her wondered what was going on at Badger Lake right now. Was it still there? Did they start reducing the number of people there since there were only a handful of younger Phoenix subjects left and their development wasn't as strong as Maya's year?

She felt … homesick and it surprised her.

"How are you feeling," Jeremy asked.

"Okay, I guess," she replied. Jeremy had taken a special interest in her. She assumed that Jaime had asked him to watch over her while they were gone.

She looked ahead and the others had stopped. Derek was crouching, looking at something on the ground.

He stood up and walked a few feet further.

"Here," he said. "You wanted proof, have at it."

Clay walked up next to him and her skin shivered. She couldn't get the image of him out of her head. He had been in so many of the residuals in the basement, it was beyond unnerving. She didn't have the vocabulary to even describe it.

Clay said something quietly to Elena who had a slightly puzzled look on her face.

"Elena is our best tracker," Jeremy offered. Chloe watched as Elena slowly walked up to where Derek had stopped. She gave a sniff but her eyebrows remained knitted.

Antonio and Reese had brought shovels along with them, just in case. It seemed wrong to disturb him, even knowing that Sean wasn't _in_ there, but his body was. He wasn't killed there – there wasn't a residual – or if he had, it had been nonviolent. Chloe still hadn't managed to decipher _how_ much violence caused a residual.

Elena gave a slight tilt to her head and stood back up. She nodded at Antonio and Reese.

They began to dig.

* * *

It was a rare instance where someone could lead a group to a dead body and look smug about it. Derek was smug and his face easily let them know it.

His smugness wore off when they saw Sean. Chloe wasn't sure what to expect. He had been dead for six months, and likelihood of whoever killed him taking the extra time to embalm him was practically zero. She supposed a skeleton, or perhaps, the emerging skeleton with bits of flesh to the side. There wasn't a coffin, although that didn't surprise her. If you bury someone out in the woods, you aren't going to go through the extra hassle of taking a several hundred pound box. Badger Lake was remote enough that no one would notice if animals had dug up human remains. Or if someone did notice, they certainly weren't going to say anything in fear of retribution.

But it wasn't a skeleton that they unearthed. Sean looked as if he was simply asleep. There wasn't the accompanying smell of rot filling their nostrils. It caught her completely by surprise and she looked at the others, seeing if they were seeing what she was. More surprisingly, she realized that she didn't _sense_ Sean's body – before or after it was unearthed. He was simply there, as if he was still alive. There wasn't the skin prickling of being near a human corpse that she was accustomed too.

Derek's face was now blank. She knew that his mind must be going a hundred miles an hour trying to figure out some sort of logical conclusion, some sort of reasoning that could explain all of this.

She looked back to Sean and then she started noticing that things weren't quite as it should have been. Yes, he looked relatively fresh, close to alive, but his skin, upon closer look, was dry. Even more startling was what was missing.

"His hands," she breathed. "His hands, they're missing."

Chloe looked up at Elena, who was staring at Sean with a quizzical look on her face. Clay was next to her, whispering something in her ear.

"What are … are we just going to leave him here?"

There wasn't an immediate answer, but Elena gave a nod. It didn't seem right to her, to leave him like this, out in the woods where no one knew where he was at. Or maybe that was the best, all things considered, since his death would have a strong ripple effect through the supernatural community.

She almost volunteered to summon him, but quickly nixed the idea in her head. That would only be inviting more trouble. Sean likely didn't remember who killed him. Almost all ghosts lack the memory of their final moments. It seemed easier that way, assuming the ghosts realized that they _were_ dead after all. Liz hadn't taken the news well when Chloe had tried telling her. It took Tori's mother tossing her death out as bait to get Liz's attention for it to really sink in. Toss in the lack of her sensing the body and Eve's continued search for his spirit … it all piled up in the no column.

Jeremy was crouching at the edge of the gravesite, looking at the body. Jaime had mentioned that he was the Pack doctor. Surely he'd be able to confirm that their story was true, right? Or perhaps that was relying too much for someone who wouldn't have access to those types of facilities. She didn't suppose that the house had medical facilities for that type of thing.

Her mind started to drift back to what they _did _have access to and she quickly shut down that train of thought.

She wasn't sure what they said, or if anything was, but she found herself walking back the way that they had come. Derek was guiding her through the forest, the Pack behind them.

* * *

Standing outside the SUV, Chloe managed to have a few moments with Derek.

"How did you remember where he was?" She hoped her question sounded innocent enough and that Derek didn't ponder it deeply.

"When you find a grave in the woods, you'll always remember where it is," he replied.

"I … you didn't smell anything else, did you?"

He shook his head.

Chloe looked at Elena and Clay approaching. They were talking about something, their voices were low. Derek could probably hear them with his enhanced hearing but she couldn't. Derek didn't offer to share, either because perhaps he couldn't hear them or he didn't want them to know that he was sharing information with her.

They were broken apart and they all started loading up into the different vehicles when Reese ran out of the woods. He spotted Elena and went to her directly, ignoring everyone else. He whispered something to her and her eyes narrowed to slits.

Clay was standing next to her and he looked murderous.

"Cars, _now_," she ordered.

* * *

They didn't speak much until they had deposited Chloe and Derek in a hotel room. Noah and Reese had been left in there with them as their babysitters.

The rest were having a meeting of sorts next door. Chloe had a sinking feeling in her gut but she didn't know why they had reacted that way.

Had Maya, Annie, Ash, or Rafe been in the forest lately? They always had to stagger Derek and the skin-walkers Changes. Ash and Rafe had Changed at the same time as Derek once or twice and it led to a very tense few hours. Chloe remembered hearing their cries, it sounded like a woman screaming, and Derek howling back. She had been convinced at the time that someone was going to end up seriously injured or worse. Derek had always hated cats. He could tolerate the skin-walkers in their human forms but … well, the stereotype didn't exist for naught.

If they truly hadn't known about them and Badger Lake, then they surely wouldn't have known about Project Phoenix. Skin-walkers would be an entirely new concept for them and they would instinctively not like it.

Derek started for the wall but Reese shook his head.

Noah turned on the TV to further squash any hopes of Derek hearing what was going on next door. He flipped through the channels before pausing on a game show.

The contestants were on the final round when the door opened and they were told that they had five minutes to do whatever they needed to before they drove back to the airport.

* * *

Anxiety tends to cloud the mind, especially when travelling. Little details could easily be missed or overlooked and prove vital later on.

It was not a commercial plane, nor was it exactly a tin can with wings and an engine either. It was modestly comfortable, a few years old but not horribly dated.

Chloe started noticing things. There wasn't any sort of logo anywhere, so it wasn't a company's plane. Was the Pack wealthy enough that they had their own plane and pilot? Or had they simply rented one for the day? Where did they get the money?

She looked around, hoping that she wasn't too obvious in trying to see how everyone had situated themselves. She dug into her seat's pocket and she froze. Derek was sitting beside her and she elbowed him discretely and showed him what he found. He frowned and looked to Elena who was engrossed with a conversation with Nick and Antonio.

It wasn't any ordinary scrap piece of paper Chloe had found tucked away.

It was a discarded dinner reservation from the desk at the Cortez Cabal.

* * *

Chloe and Derek kept to themselves. They didn't want to bring attention to themselves even more than it warranted. They hadn't spent that much time in close contact since before they were taken in by the Pack.

Elena was quiet the rest of the trip. Chloe had thought that they would have been questioned as soon as they were back on the plane and the door was locked, but no, it was quiet.

What had they found in the woods to make them react in this way? Had there been a lingering smell of werewolves? The were-cats? Were there other mutts in the area now that Derek was gone? Canada was a big place, filled with plenty of woods, but that she could never rule out the possibility of someone trying to expand their territory.

The plane started its descent. The trip back seemed much longer, the opposite of how trips usually went. Chloe looked outside the window and didn't recognize the skyline.

They weren't in Syracuse. This skyline was larger, filled with tall buildings that overpowered the horizon.

She looked but she didn't know much about skylines. She had only lived in one city her entire life. This wasn't it.

Derek leaned over and took a look for himself. He didn't seem to recognize it either.


	7. Satellite Visits

**A/N: **I didn't mean for you all to be waiting this long! :( Reasons happened but good news - I'm still ahead in writing, still writing (although a bit slower but I hope that will change soon), and there is still a _lot_ that is going to happen. We're picking up speed for a bit, so I hope you all enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own the _Otherworld_ universe by Kelley Armstrong._  
_

* * *

**Chapter 7: Satellite Visits**

They were in Chicago, home of a satellite branch of the Nast Cabal. Chloe strung the pieces together from listening to the conversation behind her. A few times things seemed to pick up some intensity before suddenly growing quiet. Chloe assumed Elena had put the aggressor in their place with a glower. She was exceptionally good at those. If not, she was sure that Clay could manage his own form of silent submission.

They had landed at a small executive airport, outside of Chicago proper but close enough. It seemed bold enough. Just land where a Cabal office is and demand to have their questions answered? It was mind boggling. Well, perhaps not to her a few years ago, back when they thought they had everything at Badger Lake figured out.

They were shuffled off into the airport to wait. Clay and Elena would be handling this. Nick and Antonio were sent ahead back to Syracuse to check in on Jaime and Stonehaven. Jeremy had called her a few times and by his behavior, everything seemed to be normal.

It was another lovely situation of sitting around waiting.

They didn't have to wait for long. Elena and Clay were back within the hour. Elena was radiating frustration and anger and Clay was even worse. They all boarded the plane again and no one said a word the entire trip back.

* * *

Derek was sent back to his cage, although Chloe wasn't exactly sure _why_ but Elena's mood wasn't improved by the drink or three she had on the plane. Or back at Stonehaven once they landed, which granted, turned out to be close to an hour trip by car at a very uncomfortable high speed. She was sure that they were all going to be pulled over and arrested if they were lucky. It was easily an option that they would end up wrapped around a tree or buried in a ditch. That would be one way to handle this problem.

Jaime hadn't been very forthcoming either. Fortunately for Chloe, Liz was exactly the type of person who enjoyed listening in on conversations that she had no right too.

Liz had confirmed that the meeting with the Nasts had gone poorly, poorly enough where Elena and Clay were escorted out of the building by half-demon guards. Elena and Clay had gone into the building and asked either to see Sean or be put on a secure line to talk with him, wherever he may be. They denied the request, even after Elena mentioned that it was Council business and that they needed Sean's expertise. One of Sean's relatives – Liz didn't know who, just that he looked like Sean's cousin or something similar – called for the guards to escort them out when Elena refused to leave. Elena went over the gist of the conversation with Jeremy and Antonio. They seemed to be considered advisors when it came to things of this nature. Clay came into the picture once things needed a physical element.

Despite all of this, Chloe was still unsatisfied. This wasn't what needed to happen. What had Elena been thinking? Did the Nast Cabal have a different policy than the other Cabals regarding werewolves? Even Chloe knew that wouldn't work. Walking in and demanding to see the person in charge didn't work – not in this community or in the human one, something that she frequently heard her dad say. Perhaps Elena didn't have as much experience with the Cabals as Chloe thought. Or, maybe, the title of Alpha didn't mean much to non-werewolves.

If that was the case, they could be hunted down and taken back to Badger Lake _right now_. She tried not to panic and let her thoughts get away from her but they were already spiraling.

She needed to talk to Derek. He would find the lack of logic in her thoughts and point it out. The Nasts were always logical. They always backed the winning horse.

* * *

Derek didn't do much to help. He made it _worse_ by pointing out that she was thinking logically. If the Nasts knew about Sean's death and were covering it up, there wouldn't be any reason to humor Elena and Clay for any longer than they did. Add to it that if they had any sort of surveillance around the area or even the airport, which Derek pointed out that the Nasts likely used since it was private – they _didn't_ fly commercial – they would have seen them being escorted by Pack members at the airport while they waited.

They could now be waiting on two possible attacks – the Nasts or Malcolm and the Cains.

It wasn't a reassuring thought.

If they continued cooperating with the Pack, they would at least have some sort of protection. The Cains wouldn't harm them, or at least everyone but Keith, but Malcolm could easily go either way. The more likely scenario was that Derek would survive but she wouldn't. He was what was valuable to the Cains and she was valuable to the Nasts. They both knew that the Nast Cabal didn't have any werewolves in their employment records. They had tried to play it off at Badger Lake, reasoning that they simply never had a werewolf apply for a position, but that didn't make sense. Why wouldn't a werewolf be a prime Cabal employee? Lethal when necessary, supernaturally strong, typically a good nose for tracking people – it just didn't add up.

Despite what Jaime told her, she a small part of her still wanted to try summoning him. She at least needed to _try_. Trying, however, would involve being completely honest with Derek and she wasn't ready for that. She wasn't sure if she would ever be fully ready for that conversation.

How on earth could she even bring it up? 'Sorry, even though I've watched you turn into a wolf countless of times and back, there are some things that I'm just not comfortable with you knowing because they're too private?' What kind of logic did that follow?

She did and didn't want to know more. Jaime could tell help her in that aspect, she knew. Eve would also be a better source of information than Liz would be as well.

In the end, it wasn't a matter of choice. There wasn't a right choice. There were simply options that would have less fallout.

Derek would have to forgive her. If not … well, he couldn't hold it against her.

After all – she remembered how their real conversation played out.

* * *

Chloe told Jaime and Elena everything this time, nothing was held back. She showed them the notes she had taken while they were on the road, she had gone into detail about their movements and their encounters at the airport. She told them about the different Cains and what roles they all played. She told them about Malcolm's looming threats and how he held himself. She told them about Lauren.

Elena had sat there quietly, taking down notes while Chloe was talking. Jaime sat there, aghast at how much more there was to the story.

Chloe continued on, talking more about the runes, how Derek found them in some text they had to leave back at the Cains' cabin. She told her about Liz's warnings, about how she shouldn't be summoning anything and to stay within the runes at all times. She obviously wasn't staying within the runes, but some things were just out of her control.

Obviously she hadn't done that lately and seemed no worse for wear but it was still a precaution that she felt awkward not taking. She felt naked, almost, feeling everything once again.

"You remember the address?"

"I never saw one," Chloe said. "But, I could give you directions."

* * *

Chloe didn't tell Derek what she had given up to Elena in exchange for Jaime's help. He seemed relieved that she was getting help after all of this time. It was only a matter of time before he knew. She wondered if he could bring himself to look at her, after he knew, after the Pack put an end to the rebellion. He would do _anything_ in order to make sure that she was alright. Was it that drastic of a difference with her being the decision maker instead of him?

She wanted to tell him, she only needed a way to do it. She simply couldn't go in and blurt it out. He might appreciate it more but it didn't sit right with her. None of this did really, but she knew that this was the choice that she had made and would have to live with.

He would forgive her, in the end, she knew. He would begrudgingly be happy with the idea that she had stood up for her own happiness and well-being. He would logically be happy with it. The only problem was that Derek wasn't the logical thinker that he once was. Other things had crept their way into his brain, their coils altering his neural pathways.

Once things had settled, she would tell him. It was important that it had to be from her, she had stressed to Elena. Elena had obliged and even seemed a bit relieved at tasking that duty to someone else.

"Did she say when you'll start," Derek asked.

"Later tonight, after dinner, I think. She's calling some of her contacts to track down more information about the great-aunt that had this necklace."

"Is that a hopeful lead?"

She shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. It's a starting point. If we can track down what happened to her, we might be able to track down other things, like maybe where she got it, if she ever talked about it to any of her closer relatives. Jaime seems hopeful, so I think we're on the right path."

"Any word when I'm no longer considered an imminent threat?"

"Soon," she said sharply. "Soon," she repeated, trying to smile.

* * *

Jaime rubbed her head. She had already taken several painkillers. She had run into a few unexpected dead ends with tracking Chloe's distant relatives so they were starting at the very beginning.

"So, you just pull, right?"

"Yeah," Chloe repeated.

"And there isn't any other sensation that you feel? Hot? Cold? Tingly?"

"Not at first, no … sometimes, well, now I suppose tingly would be the best word to describe it."

Jaime muttered something under her breath. She had been taking notes of their conversation to refer back to later. She assured Chloe that they wouldn't be used against her, just notes to help keep everything straight in her head when she compared her situation to others.

"Can you describe when it changed? Anything specific?"

"I …" she trailed off, blushing. "I'll do my best, although my memory is a little …" she stopped again. "This room, it's far enough from the basement, right?"

"It should be, yes."

"It's been coming back to me, now that the runes aren't really around like they were. I was close to making a breakthrough back at the cabin, I was sure of it, but then Liz said I needed to go back inside them."

Thankfully Liz wasn't here for this conversation, Chloe considered. She was out searching for her own answers for Chloe on the other side. Chloe hoped that she wouldn't pop in and hear something that she shouldn't.

"How old were you?"

"Eighteen. I started seeing ghosts at fifteen, so I wasn't sure if it was just some sort of maturation thing or if it was something else. It turned out to be something else." Chloe paused and Jaime watched her.

When Chloe didn't continue, Jaime offered a suggestion.

Chloe shook her head. "No, not sex, I'm not that much of a walking cliché," she laughed softly. "No, it … well, it did involve Derek though. He had stayed behind at Badger Lake with me even though he was a year ahead of me academically. He _should_ have gone, I told him that he should, but he … he didn't. He stayed behind.

"It was … feeling happy, I suppose. We were talking about the future, what we wanted and then it all came to a screeching halt. I've never pressed him for the full details. He would probably be a better source as to what happened and the immediate aftermath."

Jaime looked at her, puzzled.

"It just … as I said, I'm remembering more about what happened, but I don't have the whole picture, not yet. When I came to, my pendant was this color."

"It wasn't that before?"

Chloe shook her head.

Jaime walked over to her and silently asked to touch it. Chloe nodded. Jaime picked up the pendant and looked at it.

"It started off red, real red, a ruby color. I always thought it was just a fake stone. Once I started seeing ghosts, it started shifting to purple and it stayed there for a week or so. After that, it went to blue and it just kept getting lighter the more and more training they had me do. But it was still noticeably blue, not this light color."

Jaime gently let go to of the pendant.

"Your mother gave this to you?"

"Yes, but she wasn't … she wasn't a necromancer. Her twin brother was, though. He … he died. Lauren," her breath hitched as she let her dead aunt's name pass through her lips, "said that he started going crazy, seeing ghosts, talking about demons. Derek tracked down an article that confirmed that he jumped off a roof building to his death. He had only started college not too long before. He quit and went back home, but he still … the article said that he fell from a roof."

"I've seen these necklaces before," Jaime said. "But they were only trinkets, superstition from a generation or two ago. It operated on the same basis as people believing in crystals do now, saying that each type of stone has an energy that it either gives out or takes in. My nan … she was by far the best of what we do wrote it off, so I did too. I really wished I had her books. They wouldn't have anything about the necklace, but maybe there were previous versions that it might have a detail here or there."

"Can't you get someone to summon her?"

"Necromancers can't be summoned. We have a one way trip."

"Um, are you sure about that? One of the first few ghosts I ran into was a necromancer. He was trying to help push me to find out about the Lyle House."

Jaime looked at her; her face said that she was evaluating her, trying to see if she was lying or not.

"I … I think this is enough for now. I'll keep making calls, see about tracking down more information about the great-aunt that had that necklace. That should give us some answers."

Jaime headed to the door but Chloe called out to her.

"Am I going to be alright?"

* * *

Derek was under guard in the weight room. Clay was leaning against the doorframe. He had been opposed to this idea to the start. Elena and Jeremy had said otherwise and simply one of their opinions was more than enough for him to begrudgingly do what they asked. Chloe watched him. She was down here too, as a piece of collateral.

Derek could work out – and hopefully work out some pent up energy – but Chloe was there. If he tried to make a break for it, well, there were a lot of weights in the room and not much in the aspect of hiding places.

If Chloe had even wanted to do something with weights, she couldn't. The smallest size she saw was fifty pounds and that was the end of that train of thought.

"You're doing it wrong," Clay said again. Derek had ignored him the first five times Clay had said it. He had finished his set and then moved on to the next exercise.

Clay didn't seem offended by the lack of acknowledgement. Chloe wasn't exactly sure what he would do if Derek did. Would he simply come over and show him the correct way to do whatever exercise? Or was it some ploy just to get in close with Derek to give him a threat? Or to lure him into a trap? 'Here, let me show you how to lift this, oh damn, that weight just crushed your windpipe.'

Derek didn't ask for any help during his time in the weight room and Clay never offered any actual useful advice.

* * *

She had to tell him soon. Elena was working on a plan and Derek had to know before it happened. Elena had left that up to her, she could tell him before or after it happened. Elena would have preferred to have Derek along as unaware bait. If Malcolm had expressed enough interest to train him, he would be considered valuable and Malcolm would do his best to get him back into his control.

When Chloe had suggested that Malcolm may come at Stonehaven directly, she let out a sharp laugh. Jeremy didn't seem as amused but he shook his head.

But, and it weighed heavily on her mind, the most effective way would include using Derek and him not knowing that she had sold out his biological family.

Liz wasn't much help, she would listen to one argument, agree with it, and then when Chloe presented a counter, she would agree with that one too.

Every time she went down into the basement, she told herself that _this_ would be the time to tell him. And every time she came back up, she still had the horrible facts garbled in her throat.

She didn't know what to do and logically, she knew that it would be better to let Elena make the call on this, even though she had handed it over to Chloe to do as she saw fit. They had a better chance of survival, perhaps, if Elena was as trustworthy as Jaime made her seem. Or it could be some long con and they would end up just as dead as the Cains and Malcolm.

Chloe realized she was outside of the study's doors, her feet taking her unknowingly, and she gave a hesitating knock. Elena was inside. She was making up drafts of the plan of attack. When no one came immediately, she shook it off and started to turn away, her gut telling her to run back to her room or to the basement, that this was not the way to do things.

The door opened before her feet could pivot.

"Chloe," Jeremy smiled. "We were just talking about you."

* * *

Chloe sat down in a chair – although not _the_ chair Jeremy preferred. She had learned that lesson when she accidentally sat down in it when they first arrived and she swore she heard Clay _growl_ at her offense.

"I've been thinking about what you said, Elena, about my choices." Chloe studied the carpet intently. "I … I think your original idea would probably be best."

Elena raised her eyebrows in slight surprise. Whatever they thought Chloe was coming in to talk about, it clearly wasn't that.

"And you've thought this through?"

"I think so. There really isn't a good choice here. I threw out my good options when I agreed to this," she brought her eyes up to meet Elena's but quickly diverted them. "But Malcolm isn't going to leave us alone, even if you all just let us go. So there is that to consider."

Chloe stood up to leave and she felt a hand on her shoulder. Nick, no, Antonio, she still mixed them up, gave it a slight squeeze and she was on her way.

* * *

"We'll be leaving soon," Chloe said, trying to catch Derek's attention as he paced in the cage.

"They're letting us go?"

"Well. Yes and no."

He frowned.

"We are leaving for a little while, but I'll have to come back for a while and then periodically afterwards. Jaime has agreed to help me. She thinks she really can, and I … I need it."

"I don't care if you have to go to Mars to get help; the important thing is that you're finally getting some."

Chloe smiled.

"So where are we going?"

"They're taking us back to the cabin. They figure that Malcolm and the Cains should have cleared out of there since we left. I … if Lauren is there, I'd like to give her a proper burial. Or she should have something there. But yeah, they're dropping us off there since that is where we left. Elena thinks that they won't be expecting us to come back, so it'll give us some time to heal up. They probably left the runes on the property too, so that is another added bonus to the location."

Derek rubbed his face, thinking.

"Jaime is going to give me a burner phone. Once she finds out more, she'll call it and we'll work out some way to get back to Stonehaven. She hasn't found anything concrete on my family yet, but she's still looking. Odds are," she took a breath, "that we'll be picked up by Pack but you won't be required to spend your time in the cage next time."

Derek stopped pacing.

"Well, I'm assuming that you'll want to come back here with me when she calls."

"And how long is that going to go on?"

"I don't know. As long as she thinks she can help me, I guess."

"I don't like it," he muttered. "I don't like the idea of us being at their beck and call at any time."

"It isn't as though we really have much say in the matter, do we? It's going to be sporadic. Hell, I don't even know if it's really going to go past a session or two before she writes me off like Margaret did. But I have to give this a shot, Derek. I have too. It's getting worse; you and I both know it."

* * *

Chloe didn't sleep well that night. She tossed and turned. She hated lying to Derek, even though this was for his own good, _their_ own good. He would have made the same choice had their situation been reversed.

No – no, he wouldn't have. He would have let himself die or be killed and let that answer where his loyalties lie.

Damn it.

She flung the covers off. Liz was still gone. She had been worried that she would have popped in while she was talking, lying, to Derek. That would have complicated matters even further.

She knew that Elena would tell her the finer details in the morning and they would all be off to the cabin.

Chloe wanted to say that she didn't feel any guilt but she couldn't. She had no remorse towards some and then mixed feelings towards the others. She understood now why Theo had done what he done, just as she understood why Nate and Carter went along with it. They had no stability and couldn't ever achieve anything close to it as long as the Pack upheld the law. She understood that but she wanted to yell at them that surely there were better ways than massacring the Pack just to replace it with people in charge like Malcolm and Keith. Things would probably be _worse_, now that she had seen how the Pack operated.

It was too late to change course now. She had committed to this and she had to stay true. She would have to continue to hold up her end of the bargain or it wouldn't matter what she lied about since they both would be dead.

* * *

Derek cooperated more than Chloe expected him too. He didn't rise to any bait nor throw any out to the Pack members as they embarked on the plane ride and then car ride to the cabin. Chloe noticed that it was the same plane that they had taken to Badger Lake and then Chicago. The Cortez Cabal connection still didn't sit right with her but she still kept it to herself. If the Pack thought her ignorant of the Cabals, beyond the Nasts, perhaps that could be something to be used in her advantage. Let them continue thinking of her as a lost girl instead of being armed with knowledge.

Her throat was parched when they turned onto the dirt road that led up to the cabin. The car's engine was killed and they would be left to walk the rest of the way. Elena briefly explained it as not giving themselves away, just in case they still had someone hanging around.

Derek wasn't bound on this trip. Elena made sure that he was aware of the trust they were placing in him, that this was their sign that they were going to uphold their deal to help Chloe and that they were not a threat to him.

Chloe walked close to him, their hands brushing as they walked. Derek had their bags on his shoulder.

Reese and Clay were at the front, followed by Elena and Antonio. The rest had stayed behind at Stonehaven, or at least, that was the story they were sticking by.

Chloe's chest tightened as she caught the first glimpse of the cabin through the trees. It looked as though the cars were gone, that was encouraging. Perhaps she wasn't really lying to Derek after all.

Derek caught the smile on her face and looked at the house. "Chloe?"

"It looks like they're gone, like they said," she whispered back. "We … we can bury Lauren and have time to regroup."

Derek nodded, satisfied with her answer.

Clay and Reese stopped and the rest of the group did as well.

"Stay back," Clay said as he and Reese slowly went ahead.

Chloe looked to Elena but she wasn't offering any explanations. Chloe had to watch as they slowly went up the driveway, each taking a side of the gravel road.

Elena and Antonio shuffled them off to the side too, to hide them in the trees. They waited there, each single minute feeling like five.

A shot rang out and they all looked in the direction where it came from, the house.

Chloe expected Elena and Antonio to do _something_, but they stood there, waiting, as if they expected this to happen.

"What –"

"Shh," Antonio shushed her.

A whistle sounded from ahead. Antonio and Elena began to move through the trees, following it. Chloe and Derek followed them, each of them knowing that this wasn't according to plan.


End file.
